Friday Ephemera

“This Fall, lightning strikes three times!” || This. (h/t, Julia) || That. || A bit of the other. || At last, a miracle breakthrough in atomised butter consumption. || Always respect the media. || Merging, self-healing ‘bots. || Man’s best friend. || The tasty parts of pigs. || Japanese slot machines of yore. || ESL students learn new gender pronouns. || Sweet dreams. (h/t, dicentra) || On nickel weeklies and dime novels. || Today’s word is mindset. || Meanwhile, in Sweden, love is in the air. || Sport is too competitive and must be reformed, says feminist academic. || A brief history of gated reverb. || Shredding golden slime. || And finally, a little-known episode of space travel history: “Pieces of faecal matter free-floated around the command module for several minutes.” A whodunnit ensues. 

Comments

[Hal]

On nickel weeklies and dime novels.

Dime novelist and his tea, tea, I tell you, it's in a teacup!!!

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

“This Fall, lightning strikes three times!”

Lightnin' is striking me again and again and again and again

[Trevor]

A whodunnit ensues.

[ Uncharacteristically resists temptation to make obvious Close Encounters pun. Checks temperature. ]

[Bill Peschel]

The "mindset" girl, Dawn Lifsey, waving the Antifa flag at the victims of communism statue is such a sweet girl. She even offered to pay the bail of anyone who "put a bullet" into Milo's head.

I'm really looking forward to 2019, when she leaves Clemson with her sports communication degree and goes looking for work.

[Sam Duncan]

“Always respect the media.”

They're just inventing their own reality now.

“Man’s best friend.”

Dogs are pack animals, you know.

“Today’s word is mindset.”

We don't need you to stand by and hold hands and sing Kumbaya as armed white supremacists destroy entire cities.

Wait... did I miss something? You'd think that kind of thing would make the news.

Kind of ironic that a group calling itself “Students for a Democratic Society” should be so hostile to a replica of the Goddess of Democracy, though. They really need to sit down and take a damned good look at themselves.

I can't help thinking of Mitchell & Webb's Nazi sketch. “Hans... are we the baddies?”

“A brief history of gated reverb.”

Or, as I recall one reviewer perfectly describe it, “steelworks drums”.

[Black Ball]

Sorry for the source but I did happen upon this item which may be of interest to budding lawyers around the world. He was just clumsy people!

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/news/a40247/man-cleared-rape-accidentally-penetrating-woman/

[Hal]

A whodunnit ensues.

[ Uncharacteristically resists temptation to make obvious Close Encounters pun. Checks temperature. ]

Oh, come on Trevor, get your Pieces of faecal matter together!

[TimT]

Sure it's been linked here before but - for more quasi-retro fun, behold: KUNG FURY.

(And its trailer.)

[Hal]

We don't need you to stand by and hold hands and sing Kumbaya as armed white supremacists destroy entire cities.

Wait... did I miss something? You'd think that kind of thing would make the news.

Oh, that did make the news, but that was also 1939 through 1945. Now, what the AntiFreeAmendment lot haven't explained is what they have to do with any sort of understanding of history.

[David]

They really need to sit down and take a damned good look at themselves.

In Ms Lifsey’s case, I doubt that self-knowledge will make a voluntary appearance.

[David]

Robot conductor.

High-rise rafting.

[David]

Or, as I recall one reviewer perfectly describe it, “steelworks drums”.

I’m now tempted to dig out Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love album.

[Joan]

“Pieces of faecal matter free-floated around the command module for several minutes.” A whodunnit ensues.

That never happened in Star Trek.

[MC]

Today’s word is mindset.

That's not the word I was thinking of....

The tasty parts of pigs.

I highly recommend Scott Rea's butchery channel for meat fans: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_t4Om5siqqFtVGd639Z0Q

[David]

That never happened in Star Trek.

I’m sure it was a deleted scene from Voyager’s Year of Hell.

[David]

“Watch out, Neelix!”

“I’ve got it on my shirt!”

[pst314]

"love is in the air"

Looks like rape, because he did not get the forest's consent.

[Mags]

“I’ve got it on my shirt!”

:-D

[Daniel Ream]

Students for a Democratic Society was a Soviet-funded front group in the 1960's. That they're behaving like this isn't terribly surprising. It's in their DNA.

The Thor trailer was fascinating. Along with Kung Fury, it shows how much direction has changed over the years (one subtle thing it missed, though: average shot length has been getting shorter dramatically over time. There are too many quick cuts in that trailer).

[David]

There are too many quick cuts in that trailer.

Still, it has a certain… something.

[David]

In-store carpeting of note.

Via Obnoxio.

[Spiny Norman]

In-store carpeting of note.

So, naturally...

I feel for anyone with dementia or visual impairments, this would cause havoc. Who cares about accessibility, right?

I get that it looks different and I'm probably being a wet blanket, but this is the kind of short-sightedness that excludes so many people.

[facepalm]

[David]

[facepalm]

I’m faintly surprised that record stores still exist.

[Darleen]

Now the comic book industry is trying to force out WrongFans.

[Spiny Norman]

I’m faintly surprised that record stores still exist.

I assumed it was a video game store. (o_o)

[David]

Now the comic book industry is trying to force out WrongFans.

Not too long ago, the left’s darling race hustler Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a Black Panther comic series, sales of which immediately fell through the floor, catastrophically, resulting in the series being cancelled after just two issues. Despite being heaped with praise by the “social justice” contingent, it turns out there’s not much of an actual paying market for ludicrously dogmatic anti-white racism in comic book form.

I’ve only seen a couple of Meyers’ videos, which were actually quite boring, but from what I can make out, his supposedly “hateful rhetoric” amounts to frank but legitimate criticism - of identitarian tokenism and two-dimensional characters. As when noting the aforementioned racism, and how Coates twisted well-liked characters to suit his own, rather depraved politics, such that they behaved erratically, even by the standards of superheroes, and sourly, and suddenly started spouting grating racial diatribes.

[ Edited. ]

[Turk Turkleton]

I’m a Marxist-Feminist Slut—How Do I Find an Open Relationship?

[WTP]

re M-F-S:

But ALL the decent men I’ve dated are really opposed to open relationships, while the men I’ve slept with who say they fancy the idea don’t ever stick around long enough for the “relationship” part of an open relationship. 


Life is kinda funny that way, ain't it? I'm sure Marxism can fix that too, you just gotta reaaaaly belieeeeeve.

[Pogonip]

"The Case of the Trotskyite Trollop," as Rod Dreher dubbed it. She certainly gets points for honesty--she summed it all up in her signature, "Marxist-Feminist Slut."

[Darleen]

re MFSlut

Monogamy feels antithetical to the type of feminism and anticapitalism I subscribe to. I am repulsed by the idea of being a man’s property. Also, monogamy—like capitalism—requires us to believe in a false scarcity: that we have to struggle for every little bit and that everything we gain comes at someone else’s expense. The kind of liberatory future I’d like to see is one of abundance and generosity and sharing. One of the few places we can experiment with that now is in our love lives. 


This is a perpetual child who wants to be taken care of and have ALL the toys.

Too bad the advice columnist didn't tell her to grow up prior to pursuing an adult relationship.

[David]

This is a perpetual child who wants to be taken care of and have ALL the toys.

Well, that is the appeal of Marxoid posturing, a kind of political neoteny. That, and spite.

[jabrwok]

Zuckerberg is apparently one of those humans which were built to last.

[SumDumGuy]

humans which were built to last

More like if humans were built to be eaten by something larger and fiercer...

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

The MFS also seem to have a case of the smugs.

[David]

The MFS also seem to have a case of the smugs.

She’s 32 and the clock is ticking. I wonder if the smug, or the pretence of smug, will stretch to forty.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

I’m a Marxist-Feminist Slut—How Do I Find an Open Relationship?

Once again, Iowahawk FTW.

David Burge‏ @iowahawkblog

Back lot of the Truck Haven, exit 322 on I-44, ask for Ray Bob

[dicentra]

The Revolution will be cosplayed.

[Darleen]

The Revolution will be cosplayed.

Looks like the guy with the handgun stuck down the front of his pants is courting a future career as a castrato.

[Darleen]

Oh yeah, he went there.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

The Revolution will be cosplayed.

I can't top Leprechaun Hezbolla Man, but then we have Mexican Carry Spike Lee, ready to blow his nads off and the stunning red shoes that sort of defeat the purpose of his surplus store USAF camo pants.

I am sorry to see Godfrey Elfwick was gone over to the dark side, but bare feet are the height of tactical readiness. I am not sure why he is so angry, though, the bow and arrow are stunning. Even money says the dude on the end has no clue how to field strip that thing.

Oh well, I guess it will be the most colorful conflict since the French gave up Zouaves.

[Quint and Jessel]

Laughing at Blazing Saddles will be illegal.

[David]

Now the comic book industry is trying to force out WrongFans.

Related, this, by Stephanie S:

In literary SFF, we are now being told by our own identitarian scolds that if we write “characters-of-colour” without referencing the current-day struggles minorities face, we are most assuredly Doing It Wrong. Apparently, in order for a character to be, say, “authentically black,” he or she has to be defined by the legacy of slavery or the horrors of police brutality. Even if he or she did not grow up in the US. Even if he or she lives five-hundred years in the future on a colony orbiting Alpha Centauri. This is a profoundly stupid notion.

That pretentious, incongruous victimhood is a caricature, a grievance-studies blackface, doesn’t seem to occur to such people.

[Pogonip]

"Laughing at Blazing Saddles will be illegal."

Even the campfire scene?

[Boyd]

That pretentious, incongruous victimhood is a caricature, a grievance-studies blackface, doesn’t seem to occur to such people.

Come for the ephemera. Stay for the quotable comments.

[David]

Come for the ephemera, stay for the quotable comments.

Well, when you see minority students from comfortable backgrounds – students who enjoy racial favouritism in university admissions, and who are cossetted to a degree that few of us will experience – claiming to be oppressed by basic grammar, or by an allegedly “insensitive” buffet, or who claim that their “black and brown bodies” will be “erased” and “marginalised” by having to share an entrance lobby with other students, then the air of caricature is hard to miss.

[David]

Now the comic book industry is trying to force out WrongFans.

Not entirely unrelated:

The co-executive producer of the new series “Star Trek: Discovery” has told Rolling Stone that President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was “front and centre in our minds” as they developed it — so much so that the rallying cry of the show’s villains is specifically patterned after the Trumpster credo “Make America Great Again.” “We felt like it would be interesting to really look at what’s going on in the United States,” Aaron Harberts told Rolling Stone, noting that the series’ primary villains — an extremist Klingon sect — scream “Remain Klingon,” something deliberately reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.” As Harberts put it, “It’s a call to isolationism. It’s about racial purity, and it’s about wanting to take care of yourself. And if anybody is reaching a hand out to help you, it’s about smacking it away…”

As The Other Half noted a few minutes ago, the smug leftists whose disdain for half the country gave rise to Trump continue to frame half the country as the villains in their own culture.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Meanwhile, at yet another "elite" university, the campus newspaper Independent Editorial Board gets shut down for not being sufficiently Woke™.

Leaders of the student newspaper at Princeton University have disbanded the publication’s independent editorial board, a move that comes after the group put forth a string of right-leaning opinions, including denouncing the women’s center for its radical feminist agenda and arguing in favor of due process...Sarah Sakha, the current editor in chief of the Princetonian who led the decision to disband the board, had written an op-ed at the time denouncing the board’s criticism.

“The Board fails to acknowledge and recognize the valid intersectionality of racism and sexism. In fact, by branding such programming as singularly liberal, the Board perpetuates the harmful politicization of basic questions of human dignity and identity, which lie at the core of these issues,”...

Once, just once, I wish these asshats would come up with something original. Regarding Sarah's claim that leftist boilerplate (interesting that zer called it "programming") is not actually "liberal", you will be surprised to note that:

Sakha, who also contributed to the Princeton Progressive, the Ivy League institution’s left-leaning political publication...

Unpossible ! RTWT, Sarah gets her Orwell on later.

[Nemo]

Spiny Norm:

I feel for anyone with dementia or visual impairments, this would cause havoc. Who cares about accessibility, right?

It got better still; in response to the quite reasonable "Simple solution: Don't look down", he gave us:

Difficult if your neck doesn’t allow you to move your head up or your vision prevents you from doing the same.

Because naturally, in the world of competitive victimhood-by-proxy, all flooring decisions should be constrained by the needs of the demented/vision-impaired, spinal-damage community. Whether the same principle applies to women's-wear isn't stated.

[Hal]

noting that the series’ primary villains — an extremist Klingon sect — scream “Remain Klingon,” something deliberately reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.”

. . . . Make
We don't care what you say you believe in or what you say your identity is and instead we care about what you do, anyone working with anyone else can play, complete separation of our government view and practice from the limited whims of some faith based church, absolutely you get to have your own beliefs instead of being told what to believe, you have the ability and opportunity to get stuff done where you can certainly do what others are doing and they can do what you are doing . . .
Great Again

Remain Kl
---hang on, which Klingons? Given that, As I Recall, this takes place before the original series and after Enterprise do you mean the rather more standard than not variety that has the forehead ridges, do you mean the ones with the Klingon Augmentation virus, do you mean the ones in a monastery or so, do you mean . . . .

Given that, especially with the US, country does not equate with DNA/food preference/propensity to inflict Morris Dancing/some other variable, perhaps a bit more clarity could occur???

[Darleen]

From the Stephanie S link above:

Remember: I'm a Star Trek fan. I know the impact Uhura's presence on the Enterprise bridge had on black Americans growing up in the 1960's (which is why I'm not opposed to "representation" in principle); I also know she had that impact because her position as a Starfleet officer and consummate professional was portrayed as wholly unremarkable -- by design.

And in case Roddenberry couldn't subtlety get the point across ...

Which, now 50 years later, would have him condemned as a white supremacist for trying to 'erase black bodies'.

[Sam Duncan]

“... the smug leftists whose disdain for half the country gave rise to Trump continue to frame half the country as the villains in their own culture.”

It's all straw men, isn't it? Trump's a “white supremacist”, Meyers is posting “hateful rhetoric”, and “capitalism [...] requires us to believe [...] that everything we gain comes at someone else’s expense”.

I think the problem the rest of us have understanding them is that we didn't appreciate the extent to which they actually believe this bollocks. We thought it was just the usual hyperbole of political activism. But that “secret Facebook page” unearthed by PJM wasn't for public consumption. They're talking among themselves in the same terms as they yell at everyone else. They're actually living in this absurd nightmare of their own invention where evil lurks around every corner and they're brave warriors fighting for justice and safety.

God help us all.

[David]

Which, now 50 years later, would have him condemned as a white supremacist for trying to ‘erase black bodies’.

It occurs to me that the kind of identitarian hustlers who talk about “black bodies” are themselves erasing individuality and treating people as little more than cartoonish racial categories.

[David]

I think the problem the rest of us have understanding them is that we didn’t appreciate the extent to which they actually believe this bollocks.

I’m not entirely convinced they do believe it. For such people, in-group signalling is important and can get very competitive. Though I’m sure they enjoy flattering themselves. And I’m also sure they enjoy the pretext for spite. In this case, conspiring to harass and bully some guy who doesn’t care to play the same kind of game.

[Sam Duncan]

“It occurs to me that the kind of identitarian hustlers who talk about “black bodies” are themselves erasing individuality and treating people as little more than cartoonish racial categories.”

It occurs to me that, were he alive today, Martin Luther King would get exactly the same treatment from the Left as Ben Shapiro.

[Spiny Norman]

It occurs to me that, were he alive today, Martin Luther King would get exactly the same treatment from the Left as Ben Shapiro.

Oh hell, Dr King was denounced as an "Uncle Tom" in his own lifetime by more radical Black Nationalists.

[Spiny Norman]

By the way, the St Louis courthouse cosplayers have been getting quite the drubbing on Twitter. Among other tidbits, Godfrey Elfwick's evil twin has come in for some especially biting commentary (besides obviously never having seen Die Hard - when storefont windows start getting smashed he'll be in a world of hurt, but he'll be able to "feel the Greensong through the pavement"). Bow hunters pointed out that those wooden arrows will likely as not explode in his face if he tried to fire them with that compound bow, assuming he even has the upper body strength to draw it (doubtful). A close-up image of the jort-wearing Rasta Mon's "AR-15" revealed it to be an Airsoft air rifle.

Buffoonery all down the line.

[Darleen]

Quillette takes the centrist obsession with objectivity and facts, the centrist’s only antidote to “fake news,” and applies it to academia.

Quelle horreur!!!

[Spiny Norman]

Quelle horreur!!!

Oh, I think I've had my "recommended daily allowance" of Self-Righteous Leftist Smug™ now.

Jeeze, Darleen, how did you find those twerps?

[Darleen]

Jeeze, Darleen, how did you find those twerps?

Unfortunately, it's not that hard.

[Joan]

an extremist Klingon sect — scream “Remain Klingon,” something deliberately reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.”

They should just publish a full-page advert saying "We don't want any Republicans or conservatives to watch Star Trek any more".

[Sam Duncan]

“Quelle horreur!!!”

So... one of the world's biggest businesses fires an employee for stating a mainstream opinion, Quillette publishes a sympathetic article, suffers a DOS attack in response, and they're “playing” the victim?

Leftist Rule #1: Anyone designated “right-wing” is fair game.

[David]

They should just publish a full-page advert saying “We don’t want any Republicans or conservatives to watch Star Trek any more”.

It would save a lot of time and effort.

But it’s a common enough conceit – this belief that openly disdaining half your audience, and half the country, is not only unassailably virtuous but also good business. I was recently watching an interview with the cast and director of Withnail & I and wondering if the film was worth watching again, having seen it once, decades ago. After some amusing anecdotes about the making of the film, I was feeling well-disposed. And then the director suddenly decided, somewhat incongruously, to share his views on Brexit and how terrible it is, and how terrible the people who voted for it are, etc., and my enthusiasm promptly vanished. What jarred was the assumption that no-one on the panel or in the live audience, or watching the video online, would disagree, or feel notably less welcome.

[WTP]

So... one of the world's biggest businesses fires an employee for stating a mainstream opinion, Quillette publishes a sympathetic article, suffers a DOS attack in response, and they're “playing” the victim?

This is the new verbal judo coming from the left. About a year or so ago, before all this confederate statue nonsense started, on a friend's FB post I questioned why Seattle had a statue of Lenin. Oooh, snowflake conservative is threatened by a statue. Language is wasted on these people. The only form of communication that they understand is physical.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Without academia we would wallow in darkness, fortunately there is Whiteness in Education, a journal of boundless sagacity to light our way.

[Turk Turkleton]

3 Quarks Daily links to Quillette occasionally. This prompted one of their left-wing regulars to complain about linking to a "prestige alt-right" site. Naturally, she did not respond to commenters, including the site owner, asking her to explain what she even meant, let alone provide anything like evidence. Classical liberal, conservative, alt-right, fascist — it's all just a fun game of taxonomic Twister as far as they care.

[sH2]

They should just publish a full-page advert saying “We don’t want any Republicans or conservatives to watch Star Trek any more”.

It's on CBS All Access. Nobody's going to watch it.

[Sam Duncan]

“Classical liberal, conservative, alt-right, fascist — it's all just a fun game of taxonomic Twister as far as they care.”

Leftist Rule #2: Anyone failing to rigidly espouse all the current Leftist talking points without a hint of criticism is to be designated “right-wing”.

[Hal]

Saudi Arabia accidentally prints textbook showing Yoda sitting next to the king

See also Darth Vader with his fellow members of a peace delegation, and Captain America with refugees . . .

[Captain Nemo]

Another one for the "Giant Vaginas" series, I think:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/23/this-ceramic-vagina-jewellery-plate-is-all-anyones-ever-wanted-6950262/

[pst314]

"Another one for the 'Giant Vaginas' series, I think:"

This leads me to miss the relatively restrained "The Dinner Party" by radfem pussy painter Judy Chicago.

[bgates]

an extremist Klingon sect

#NotAllKlingons

The villains don't sound terribly interesting. I wait with bated breath to see how the other Klingons are portrayed - the ones whose preferred pronouns are net and 'e', who maintain that when you get down to it the Ferenghi are more Klingon than anybody, and it's extremely problematic to think otherwise (in the current Stardate especially).

[Spiny Norman]

Another one for the "Giant Vaginas" series, I think:

Oddly, the "giant vaginas" never, ever look like any woman's I've seen up close.

[Daniel Ream]

It's on CBS All Access. Nobody's going to watch it.

Between siloing off their content in a service that costs as much as Netflix and then insulting a good chunk of their potential audience, it's like they're trying to fail.

That said, the franchise is in an interesting place right now. Trek fans hate the movies, but they're doing exceptionally well at the box office. The producers have implied this show is for those fans (by being very clear it is not in the new movie's milieu).

Looking at what they're doing, it seems increasingly clear they've decided traditional Trek fans are a small but affluent minority with monolithic tastes that will pay to have those tastes pandered to.

Sadly, based on the last couple of cons I've been to, I don't think they're wrong.

[David]

Oddly, the “giant vaginas” never, ever look like any woman’s I’ve seen up close.

Hey, I’m going on what I’ve been told.

[Daniel Ream]

I wait with bated breath to see how the other Klingons are portrayed

One of the interesting bits of Enterprise was the episode where they finally answer the question "how the hell did a bunch of barely-literate comic opera barbarians end up a starfaring empire". The answer is that the Klingons are literally Nazis - a once-diverse, peaceful, artistic and scientific society ("My father was a poet. My mother was a botanist.") was taken over by a violent, nationalist political movement espousing a return to a Golden Age (this is where the Kahless cult starts, apparently).

Ten out of ten for continuity, minus several million for originality, as Douglas Adams might have said. The fact that if the Bad Klingons are Nazis, that perforce makes the Good Klingons the famously decadent and economically unsustainable Weimar Republic goes unmentioned, of course.

[David]

One of the interesting bits of Enterprise

I’m pretty sure the atrocious theme song invalidates everything else.

[Sam Duncan]

“Ten out of ten for continuity, minus several million for originality, as Douglas Adams might have said. The fact that if the Bad Klingons are Nazis, that perforce makes the Good Klingons the famously decadent and economically unsustainable Weimar Republic goes unmentioned, of course.”

Indeed. But it also holes the whole “warlike species” thing under the waterline, too. Which is probably intentional, to be fair, because it's kinda-sorta racist... speciesist... er, whatever, and gives another opportunity to haul out the Warning From History storyline (and, as you say, totally fail to understand what that warning is, as usual).

However isn't having a completely different evolutionary history that might endow a different sense of morality (just as other species on Earth clearly do) kind of the point of science-fiction aliens? They're not human. They think differently. The Klingons are aggressive and warlike because they... are... alien. If they're Just Like Us, then what's the point of writing them in? You might as well have them as a bunch of rebel humans.

(Incidentally, that fat Welsh bloke buggered up Doctor Who in exactly the same way, trying to show the Doctor's “human side”, as if he had one.)

[Darleen]

They've decided traditional Trek fans are a small but affluent minority with monolithic tastes that will pay to have those tastes pandered to.

Star Trek TOS first aired when I was barely a teen - I love it, seen the episodes more times than I can count, and consider myself a traditional Trekker, though not as much a fan of all the spinoffs (started out enjoy TNG but drifted away as it got more pc preachy).

Time for the franchise to die.

[Daniel Ream]

If they're Just Like Us, then what's the point of writing them in?

The alien races in Star Trek have been allegories for real-world cultures or social mores since Day One, though. It was how Roddenberry sneaked his moralizing about current events past the CBS censors. The Klingons are the Russians, the Romulans are the Chinese, the Edenites are space hippies. Now, I happen to agree that SF should treat alien races more intelligently than that, but holding Star Trek to task for it seems unfair; they staked out their territory early and haven't deviated from it.

The Voyager episodes that delved into Tuvok's adolescence as an angry and hormonal Vulcan were some of the best alien writing in the entire franchise, I thought, but that kind of thing is extremely rare. Alien Nation did the best job of portraying a truly alien culture, but even then they were doing it explicitly as an allegory for racism against immigrants.

[Sam Duncan]

Fair point, Daniel. Although, as you say, Trek did seem to be moving towards a more realistic treatment of its species. I guess all that's up the spout now. I always preferred Babylon 5 myself.

[Spiny Norman]

Hey, I’m going on what I’ve been told.

Even more oddly, they're invariably made by women, who, one would assume, should know better. o_O

[jabrwok]

who, one would assume, should know better.

Maybe it's a matter of perspective? The angle of view is going to be substantially different for the owner than for anyone else, even with a mirror.

[Daniel Ream]

I always preferred Babylon 5 myself.

I'm sure I'll be pilloried for saying so, but I don't consider Babylon 5 to be science fiction. It's fantasy. It's not quite Lord of the Rings IN SPAAAACE, but you can see Rivendell from the bridge, if you know what I'm saying.

I quite enjoyed The Expanse, and I think near future solar system hard SF is a fertile milieu for accessible adventure stories. I'm pleasantly surprised it's gotten three seasons.

[[+]]

noting that the series’ primary villains — an extremist Klingon sect — scream “Remain Klingon,” something deliberately reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/09/25/star-trek-discovery-cast-takes-knee-shows-premiere/

"Couldn't we have just had one night of celebratory joy exclusive of politics?"

[champ]

Unfortunately, it's not that hard.

What I find funny about that post in "theoutline" is how they go to great lengths to mock conservatives comments to Quillette articles, and yet "theoutline" doesn't allow comments to its posts...

[champ]

@WTP

The only form of communication that they understand is physical.

Yep...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVV8lwcXA68