We hype BS

Salon has a nice article on the Buchanan/Robertson axis PR firm that hyped the Swift Boat BS, and their role in hyping the kerning BS.

It's on their business card, I hear. "We hype BS".

Good work if you can get it.

Oh fortunate son...

... or spoiled, lying brat. Whatever.

Yep, that's still the stuff you should be taking home here. 'Cos yep, that's what he is.

Oh, and as to the beautiful minds in the (pffft!) 'blogosphere' who styled themselves forensic typographers for a day or so? Another classic lyric comes to mind:

A man hears what he wants to hear/and disregards the rest...

And thank you, Mr. Simon. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, to be sure. But thanks for keeping the story alive, boys. Now let's all have another verse:

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail To The Chief",
Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord...

Yeah, that sings.

In which our hero cops to his (not especially) inner geek

... and argues in defense of an old warhorse of fiction.

So I found myself watching the 2003 miniseries 'reimagining' the 1979 TV series Battlestar Galactica the other night.

Okay. Actually there was really nothing accidental about it, so the 'found myself watching it' phrase really doesn't fit. Actually, I programmed the VCR, just to be certain I didn't miss it, and managed to watch it as it aired anyway.

(No, this isn't the first time it aired. It's just the first time I was on the ball enough to catch it.)

Fact is, I was a big fan of the original series, when it first aired all of 25 years ago now, when my age could be expressed with just one digit, and I recall my siblings were as well. I remember also that my father quite hated the show, probably largely because of its rather blatant cold war, militaristic overtones.

I can't remember being particularly aware of those at the age of nine. But no, there's no mistaking them, just thinking about it a moment. Essentially, in the original show, there were two general classes of threats to the heroes. One was the enemy--perfectly alien, implacable, and ruthless--and no one knew why it was out to destroy human civilization, that's just what it does, apparently. The other was those among the humans who either actively colluded with the enemy, or, failing to take the enemy's malevolence appropriately seriously, somewhat less intentionally assisted it.

I expect the 'reimagining' might well annoy my father at least a little less, were he to bother to see it (which, I suppose, seems unlikely). One of the things I found so notable about it was how very consciously, explicitly and precisely it attempts to invert this aspect of the original. In the new one, the threat is ultimately an aspect of ourselves, a doom we brought upon ourselves--through arrogance, through hubris, perhaps just through lack of foresight. It's even explicitly spelled out, in the principal protaganist's speech--we were the flawed creations.

It's a good move, I have to say--giving the work a dynamic that speaks more directly to more relevant and familiar contemporary anxieties. My expectation is current audiences will find this distinctly more plausible, and thus distinctly more frightening. We have indeed had a hand in creating many of the dangers we currently face, from the broad range of hazards posed by environmental degradation, through to the complex collusions between various Western governments and movements--from the Islamists to the theocratic conservative Christians--deeply hostile to critical enlightenment ideals. And there's also, for good measure, more than a little scariness associated with the odd new hazards posed in the brave new world of widespread network integration--generating scenes just about anyone should find entirely chilling--or at least anyone who's ever worried a bit about the reliability of the hardware they rely upon against subversion, sabotage, and simple malfunction.

There's also some stuff, of course, which I can't help suspecting will travel about as well as did some of the more campy aspects of the original. Some bizarre sexual politics with a classic evil alien vamp character--Kate Millett could, I expect, have had great fun with it, and this subplot's potential to turn to cheese with age, I'm afraid, is probably dangerously high.

But I do have to say, on balance, it's done something very critical considerably better than even the original did at its best, and that's actually saying something. And here's where I have to speak in defense both of the old warhorse and its new incarnation.

Stepping around the more poorly written moments (of which there were many) of the original, the frequent descents into camp, cliche, and low comedy, and the frequently rather two-dimensional characterization, one of the qualities of the old space opera I remember and can still defend was its exploration of humans working together in extremis, pushed to their limits, pushed even to the brink of extinction. The actually very dark original premier, which begins with an almost apocalyptic vision of near annihilation, after all, established a tone and opened up themes more generally optimistic works in the same general subgenre--such as the endless Star Trek spinoffs--rarely allow themselves to risk.

In the Star Trek series I've had the pleasure to watch (no, actually, I'm far from a slavering fan, though perhaps I've seen half of the second series, and most of the original, over time--the franchise is so ubiquitous, I almost suspect you'd get that much just from background exposure through TV store windows, even if you didn't actually own a television yourself), the human species is making it, really, and even when pressed, there's a certain (I have to say it) smugness about the buggers, I'm sorry to say. Yes, it's nice holding up what we could become, I suppose. But I can't say I find it frequently makes good drama.

But a few desperate, terrified people on the run into parts unknown, a vastly superior enemy bearing down from behind, that's got drama. That's got possibilities for writing about people, instead of just about ideals. The reimagining, I'm happy to say, seems to have got that so far, and taken that forward, made it work for early 21st century audiences. The sight of a mushroom cloud on the horizon, the shocked awareness that everything is changed, that you have no home left to which to go--all of that's there, and with the somewhat richer, more involved characterization they've been able to create in many cases, it rises above most of the lesser works of the series' other obvious cousin--the post-apocalyptic world subgenre--and gives it real resonance.

I have to salute them for this. And as I hear now they've got the greenlight for a series, I also have to say: I hope they keep making it work.

Who knows. Maybe if they do, they'll achieve something the original didn't...

Like a second season.

Good luck to them.

58% RH

... in the basement this morning, the dehumidifier going full blast over the night now. That's down about 12% from where it was yesterday after we finished bailing, but still way too high. Mebbe when I get some more of the waterlogged books outta there, things will improve a bit more.

Good news is, the storm's gone, the sun is shining, the sun room's warm and breezy; lots of places to air things out.

There were many, many books that deserved better than this down there. Damn.

My eloquent curses would go here

So as I pulled into the driveway after work today, I noticed something no homeowner much likes to see--the sump pump outlet spouting a massive and continuous plume of water.

Yep. Seems that, despite being substantially inland, we were one of the last victims of Hurricane Frances. Granted, it was a long way from losing the roof, as those unfortunates to our south experienced. Me, I just came down the basement stairs to discover more than an inch of water in the basement--the very furnished basement--the basement full of books, clothing, and--a measure of how little fear we had of water--photos, all stored entirely too close to the floor.

Not sure quite what happened. Best guess is the sump pump was a bit slow cutting in due to the cloth sitting on its floater, or maybe it just couldn't quite keep up with the flow. Anyway, by the time I came down to give it some help, there was enough water under the foundation to force it up through the floor around the sump hole, at one hell of a rate.

So we spent a fun evening of pumping out water with a wet vac and portable pump, drying rugs, mopping floors, spreading out waterlogged books and photos.

It's times like these I wish I had the Newfie gift for truly elaborate, creative profanity--like that demonstrated in the infamous message allegedly left by an irate customer for the cable company--a remarkable and seemingly endless tirade of obscenity and abuse. Me, best I can manage is a few of the good old Anglo-Saxon four letter standards everyone uses.

Ah well. We're well on our way, and the dehumidifier seems to be taking the damp outta the place, anyway. And it seems (provided we can get things dry enough before anything starts to rot) there's no serious damage. Though there's more than a few of the books I'll miss if the pages stick irrevocably together.

Take a good look

So as you may or may not have heard, the editor of Izvestia was pushed out of his post the other day over his paper's coverage of the Beslan hostage crisis.

A few interesting facts:

1. The cries of outrage are over 'graphic' coverage of the outcome of the crisis, including photos of the bodies of some of the many children killed.

2. Izvestia was one of a few papers which contradicted the (false) official line on the number of hostages present. The official reports were around 350. Izvestia, through parents and other interested parties, got a number more like 1,200, and reported it. In the aftermath, they were clearly vindicated in this decision.

3. There are rumours to the effect that the Kremlin was involved in pressuring those who pressed Shakirov (the editor) to quit.

I have about three things to say about this:

1. Yes, pictures of dead people, and especially of dead children are obviously rather upsetting.

2. But what's upsetting (to my mind) is not that someone took that picture. It's that someone killed those children.

3. There is compelling public interest in the coverage. And I'd argue the style of coverage Izvestia adopted is eminently defensible. It was, in fact, quite responsible journalism. I'd argue further that papers and broadcast outfits producing coverage that glosses over the gruesome reality of the siege are really the ones that should be made to answer for it here.

Let me expand, particularly, on that last point. Though it requires a bit of a digression.

Early in the US-lead invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera was criticized by official US government sources (among others) for its broadcasting graphic photos of combat injuries and fatalities. One image showed the head of a child, aged about 12, that had been split apart, reportedly in the US-led assault on Basra.

There was outrage in many quarters, including some from the US population. Al-Jazeera's English language website underwent intense denial of service attacks. Someone out there seemed to think that if they didn't want to see those photos, no one should be able to.

But the context is interesting. Or, more to the point, the contrast.

Up until that point, from what I was seeing, much of the coverage of the combat had been far from graphic. If, for example, you were to turn on the major US cable news channels, you'd frequently be treated to footage from 'embedded' reporters traveling with US units. Grainy, night-vision images of moving troop columns. Grainy, telephoto shots of distant explosions, often courtesy of the military, with arcane telemetry numbers alongside. That's what the war looked like, if you stuck to CNN and their competitors.

Also interesting: in one odd event, early in the war, the US forces attempted a cruise missile strike on a residential building in Baghdad, hoping, according to their own statements, to catch a prominent Ba'ath party member--possibly a member of Hussein's family--in the strike.

This is where it gets odd. A number of sources in Baghdad reported that someone had been killed in the strike. The official military sources, commenting on this report, said only, rather obliquely, that you couldn't trust everything you hear from such sources.

Here, I think, are the questions you need to ask yourself at this point:

What, exactly, is a cruise missile for?

Why, exactly, did the military say they fired it?

The answers are, of course, (a) for killing people, and (b) to kill someone.

And yet the official source would like to say that just because they say someone died, there's no particular reason to believe this.

Now, of course, the official is technically correct. They probably couldn't be certain they killed anyone.

But the point is--and the larger point I'm trying to make here is--you really shouldn't be too terribly surprised that they might have.

Because that's exactly what they were trying to do.

I mean, they themselves said so. Granted, they probably said it rather euphemistically. I suppose it might have been a 'tactical strike', or somesuch phrase.

I'm going to make a statement here. A generalization, if you will:

What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. What's obscene is saying you're supportive of a war, and then refusing to look at those pictures.

What's obscene is not pictures of dead children. It's killing children. What's obscene is killing them, or seeing them killed in a conflict you're involved in, and then insisting the graphic, horrifying reality of their deaths isn't 'newsworthy'.

What's obscene is not pictures of dead children and soldiers. It's showing a nice colourful graphic of troop movements, when you know those bodies are lying are there. It's showing bouncing steadicam footage of some slackjawed 'embedded' drone reporting on the quality of the US forces' MREs, when you know a twelve-year old child just got their head blown off.

My point here is: this is the reality of the situation. A reality which, really, ought to matter to you.

If you supported that war (and I'm not arguing merely by this that you shouldn't have, and I was rather divided on the question myself, though that's a longer essay, notwithstanding the reality that Dubya and many of his administration really ought to be right beside Hussein in the dock at the International Criminal Court, along with his dad and any of the Reagan staffers that variously helped Iraq out and/or merely looked the other way when they were using chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds), listen, it's merely a matter of integrity that you face its reality. And that's a big part of its reality. Not flashing icons on grainy phosphor screens. Dead children. With their heads split open. Because that's one of the prices paid in getting Hussein and his band of brutal torturers out of there. Notwithstanding that the deposed regime itself was also the author of many such scenes of misery.

There are many, many parallels between these situations--that in Russia, and that in Iraq. And I find my own response to them has many parallels.

For one thing, I find I cannot entirely condemn the US attempt to oust Hussein. That's not what I'm saying here. It's arguable it was a reasonable thing to do. The motivation of Dubya and cabinet I can question. Their utter hypocrisy, I can establish. Their utter unfitness to govern, I'm convinced of. But that doesn't mean the action they took was entirely without merit.

In the Russian situation, as something of a parallel, I have much sympathy for those who were trying to resolve the situation. They didn't take anyone hostage. They would have liked, I'm sure, that no one died.

But merely to show someone did die isn't to condemn the handling of the siege. It's to be honest. Honest about something that matters.

The larger reality of the Chechen situation is also parallel, I'd say, to the Iraq situation, in one particular way: the government that is handling it would rather that its public not be apprised of these brutal realities. They'd clearly prefer--and their preference is made obvious by their actions--that their citizenry be kept at a safe, anaesthetized distance from the brutal, visceral reality of the conflict.

Again, in this situation, I say: this is dishonest. And cooperating with this intent is, in fact, irresponsible. Whether or not you feel the Russian government's response to the Chechen independence movement is appropriate, or that the independence movement's terror tactics have any justification (and, for the record, no I don't, and no I don't)--all of this is irrelevant in terms of this question: if you vote for any of these governments, or need to consider the question of your support for any of these actions, should you know the reality?

And I say, there is no question. You should know. You absolutely should know.

And sure, it's not pretty. But the bodies Izvestia showed, I'm afraid, are a rather big, rather significant part of that reality.

That's one of the pictures that tells the story. Yes, that and grieving parents, young siblings standing at their sides, and mothers and fathers, tears in their own eyes, telling daughters and brothers the person they grew up with, the young child with their life ahead of them, is now gone. They will never see them again.

That's the part the government doesn't want you to see. That's the part the government that claimed the number of hostages was many times smaller than it was doesn't want you to see. That's the part the US and British administrations would rather their citizens not think about. That's the part a lot of your fellow citizens insist they don't want to see.

And that's the part I regret I must insist you do see.

That's all.

(Further reading: Google on Reagan, Iraq, and chemical weapons, or Al Jazeera, photos, and Basra, or do a news search on Izvestia, Shakirov and Beslan--I'm not going to try to pick links from so many).

I rule

Well, further to my Bit bashing post, I have prevailed. Happy client, happy day.

Ahhh...

Fear me.