The Voices of Heaven

Frederick Pohl, 1994

I think the only other Pohl I've read is The Space Merchants. In Voices, I was constantly distracted from the narrative flow by the narrator's/author's trick of introducing a topic, then backing off for a few paragraphs or pages, then getting back into it. Not just once or twice, for big plot reveals, but constantly. It's like walking arm in arm with someone, getting into a good stride, but the other person keeps taking a step BACKWARD every now and then. Most annoying.

The title is a bit off-kilter. The "heaven" or sixth-stage forms of the native people do not speak; it is the third through fifth forms that speak to the human settlers. I know; the heaven of Christianity is also one of the threads of the novel, but if one of the characters was hearing voices from his or her heaven, I missed it.

Helge, a character mentioned repeatedly in Chapter 4, becomes Helga in Chapter 27 - poor editing.

The native people, and their interactions with humans, remind me a lot of those in Speaker for the Dead.

Some of the key moments receive little attention. Notably when the narrator is shanghaied - he comes to terms with the fact, after a decade or two of cold-sleep and many lightyears of distance away from home and loved ones, with surprising acceptance, almost complacency.

Too much acceptance of mainstream, and even fringe, Christianity for my taste, but that's just my taste. It is what the novel is about, after all.

I did think they would go ahead and intentionally or otherwise split the Pangaea-like continent into parts, which would solve several of the colonists' problems. Oh well, not my plot.

I love the cover art, by Ron Walotsky.

National Eat at Wendy's Day

I hereby declare this to be National Eat at Wendy's Day, in honor of the wedding anniversary of Elizabeth and John Edwards.

If you can't find a Wendy's, eat at Culver's.

I cannot believe my eyes. From the Washington Post:

The United States and the European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year, potentially including information about a person's race, ethnicity, religion and health.... According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.

Just last night I saw an episode of PBS's Now that demonstrated how the Republicans stole the 2004 election. Of course, I already witnessed how they, with the connivance of the Supreme Court, stole the 2000 election. The thief in charge made his first-ever, after five years in power, veto to prevent medical research that uses stem cells. Today he is promising to veto legislation continuing and expanding health insurance for children.

The war, the lying Attorney General, the national debt to foreign nations, our standing in the world - I am sickened. And we liberals, progressives, moderates - we sit tamely and wait, hoping, against all evidence to the contrary, that they will not steal the next election.

Even if they don't, even if we somehow manage to elect a Democratic President and larger majorities in Congress, the new leaders - even if they don't use their Republican-provided ability to gather this type of Big Brother information about people - they will not demolish the capability to do so. Then the next time the Thieves are in charge, they will expand their powers yet more, and soon enough they will have assured that they are ALWAYS in charge, or perhaps will occasionally allow a Lieberman-type to nominally be in charge.

This has been the most frightening week of my life. To watch the Attorney General of the United States, the person overseeing our entire legal system, to watch him lie baldly to the Senate, and feign forgetfulness, was profoundly shocking. How could I have been so naive?

Aren't we angry enough? I just don't get it. Yes, I'm still on about the issues in my last post.

Digby has a post up about the cost of this war. If we would only pour that amount into rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and getting their economy back up, the "insurgents" would be stymied and Iraq and the rest of the world would start to like us again (shades of Sally Field). If everyone in Iraq were prosperous, they would have no reason to fight each other. With Leon Uris's Trinity fresh in my mind, whatever anyone says about religious wars, no one wants to risk their and their children's well-being in violence just because their neighbors go to a different mosque or church.

There will always be religious and political differences among people, but they don't escalate into violence unless there are significant economic issues as well. Where are the historians?

Let's Get 'Em!

Why are Democrats unable to pin memorable, disparaging labels on Republicans? Benchmarks in Iraq, firing leakers, sanctity of traditional marriage, culture of life -- the opportunities for calling them on their hypocracy and flip-flopping are boundless. Yet they continue to control the discourse. I don't mean so much the "framing" fad, as I do the entire use of language and controlled anger. Are we too kind? Too humble? We must NAIL THEM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jq0j80UB_c

Christy Hardin Smith has just published a great post http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/10/no-room/ on the mob mentality and Alice-in-Wonderland quality of this administration. It's an erudite, well-reasoned piece with no name calling or anything pithy for the talking heads to grab onto. How about, playing on La Casa Nostra, we start referring to this White House as La Casa Bianca? Or something. I don't pretend to be good at this, but others are. We have to capitalize on the current dissatisfaction with Iraq and the record low approval numbers of B*** and Ch**** and get the country laughing - no, sneering - at Republicans. I clearly remember how, in the runup to the 2004 elections, the right was sneering at Democrats simply for having so many candidates. Well, this year, they have more than we do - and it's a lot - and no one on our side seems to recall this. No one ever calls them on it. They get away with crap after crap, like a teenaged boy: Sorry, Mom, I will this time.... Okay, but I promise I will this time.... No, really, I really truly will - THIS time....

More on the Atheism series

I'm still working through my emotional response to this programme :) . I felt proud to be one of these intelligent, informed atheists, but mostly I was just poleaxed. Rather like Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, or We're Here and We're Queer, the first time I heard either of those proclamations.

Ah, I've just realized what made the show so unusual - there was no presentation of the "other side." In American politics, the media is supposed to present "both sides" (in reality fulfilling the equal time requirement most unevenly), and that approach has bled over into its coverage of almost everything else, particularly anything the least controversial. So that, instead of telling us what's what with global warming, or the Shroud, say, of Turin, we hear from scientists on the one hand and true believers on the other. The viewers are left to "make up their own minds", as if there were no factual aspect to the matter.

But the British atheism show ONLY presented information about the course of atheism throughout history - no religious types got to have their say! Most unusual!

Inspired

I just spent the afternoon and early evening watching "Atheism: A Brief History of Unbelief" and the accompanying interviews. What an eye-opener! I learned some things, but mostly I was astounded, not only to look at these guys stating boldly their non-belief in God, and their logical reasons for it, but to think that this program was actually broadcast nationwide, albeit in England. There's some hope that it will appear in the US, but I can't imagine it. That's how bible-belty it feels here. Or perhaps my childhood has a stronger hold on me than I like to think.

The one drawback, and it is a big one, is that the show was exclusively white males, and mostly pretty old too, though I don't really mind that. But to think that not a single woman could have made a substantive contribution to the topic. Huh.

Immediately afterward, I caught the last part of Bill Moyers' "The Buying of the Iraq War", followed by an Iowa Public Television journalist roundtable on in-state coverage of the runup to the war. Gilbert was great; to the others I kept saying, so why did you?

Still, for today at least, things are looking pretty good for us antiwar antireligion types.

Red

Five minutes in: The red is such a welcome contrast after the cold, dreary white of White. It's also more natural - taillights, jackets, no-left-turn signs - than the blue of Blue - candy wrappers, glass mobiles.

Fifteen minutes in: Okay, enough with the red already! Every thing that doesn't move is painted or dyed red, and if you count the dog's blood, then some of the moving things as well. Even the protagonist is named Valentine.

On the other hand, it does have two dogs in it.

An hour ten in: I'm sorry the young judge guy's girlfriend is cheating on him, but the fact that if she doesn't answer her phone, he goes to her place and, with some effort, spies on her with her new lover - that's creepy. In fact, Marie's own boyfriend sounds pretty creepy and controlling, too - and Kieslowski doesn't seem to be commenting on it, it seems like neutral depiction. Hope I'm wrong, that it (critisicm) just doesn't come across in translation.

Auguste, the scorned lover, has just tied his little dog out on a post and is abandoning him. I hate him. Ah, later, we see he couldn't go through with it. But does the dog survive the ferry capsize??

White

As with Blue, I get more out of it on every viewing. This time, I was struck by Karol's weakness and ineffectualness in France - before the film starts, he wins prizes for his hairstyling, but by the time we meet him, he is one sad sack loser - but when he returns to Poland, he quickly grows in cleverness and determination. In contrast, Dominique is the dominant personality in France, but after Karol lures her to Poland, their roles reverse and she becomes the needy loser. Is it the natural difficulty a foreigner faces when dealing with the court system of a strange country? Or is it something more mystical, about drawing strength from one's native soil? (As opposed to Blue, which at least superficially celebrated the EU.)

The film certainly makes Poland look like a cold, dreary place, with rusted-out infrastructure apparently not renewed since WWII and a post-communist economy where only the corrupt survive.

Maybe next time I will figure out the ending: she's to be hung, then she'll climb up to heaven and they will be married there??

Frasier vs. Cheers

Blogger Lance Mannion always holds up Cheers as one of the premier television comedies of all time. Right now, I'm watching Cheers and Frasier in tandem, and I'm up to Season 5 for both. Cheers has truly archetypical characters, and is very funny, but Frasier makes me laugh out loud in every episode, even though I've seen them each a dozen times or more.

Perhaps the thing that makes Cheers the less funny of the two, for me, is that I know the whole story - the center couple ultimately does not stay together. And so much of the humor is one person insulting another (Diane/Sam, Sam/Diane, Carla/Cliff), which grates on my humanity after a while.

Presumably Lance Mannion likes Cheers so much because he identifies with Sam - I just saw the LM episode a few days ago - and certainly I always identified with Diane. But her story is a sad one. Whereas there is no one on Frasier with whom I identify (aside from Niles).

Frasier won Emmys 5 years in a row, I believe - a record - and I can see why. It plays to the strengths of the actors in an amazing way. Ep. 1 of Season 5 - Frasier's Imaginary Friend - is one of my favorite episodes and has one of the best-delivered lines in the series. In any series. And David Hyde Pierce is possibly the finest comedic actor of this generation. Posture, gesture, facial expression, timing, delivery - he can do it all, and plays the piano too.

Plus, Frasier has Eddie (see esp. Season 4).

Elizabeth Edwards's cancer

I remember a time when the First Lady and Second Lady had one breast between them. No one accused their husbands of using the women’s health for political gain, or claimed that the women’s health affected their husbands’ ability to govern.

I strongly suggest that if the candidate in question were a Republican, neither of these issues would arise in the mainstream media; rather, the talk would all be of the couple’s strength and commitment and courage.

I Am Spartacus

My html skills are not such that I can insert Shakespeare's Sister's bannerhead. But I am extremely disappointed that Edwards did not do more to keep SS and Amanda Marcotte on board. Instead, he made them apologize, and said nothing about Donohue and his ilk. Why weren't they vetted in advance of their hiring?

The Minstrel Boy has a good post on this topic.

I was ripping and listening to Taking the Long Way this morning, and began thinking about the similarities between both groups of women. The Chicks stood up to as bad insults and threats as SS and Amanda received, but the latter two caved. I'm not blaming them - presumably the famous and wealthy Chicks had more resources to back them up, and each other. But I am so glad they persevered and created that wonderful album (which just won Album of the Year Grammy, the Grammys being something I seldom pay any attention to). I'm sorry the other two didn't. And I'm very disappointed in Edwards.

Wilson / Plame

Since when is a trip to Niger considered a junket? It's not exactly the Bahamas, not even any beaches. I have never heard of Niger being a tourist destination.

Johnmentum

Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare's Sister have both begun to work for JRE! This, despite the fact, for both of them, that he is still "struggling" with gay marriage rights. He says he is all for civil unions and other rights, but personally has a prejudice regarding the term "marriage." Hopefully his daughter and other influential persons (like his new Webmaster) can help bring him along.

State of the Union

Not film criticism, alas, but rather Presidential speechifying. My first sustained (and repeated) reaction during the speech was, "9/11 AGAIN? Let it go already! The vast majority of New Yorkers have moved on. Okay, it was the defining moment of your life. To the rest of us, it's your pathetic excuse for aggression against Saddam Hussein and, soon, Iran." My second thought was, "At last you are admitting failure in Iraq. What took you so long to notice?"

The "war on" terrorism should properly be fought by intelligence, doing their jobs honestly and fully, and by diplomacy backed by foreign aid. Waiting until someone is actually lobbing missiles at us is irresponsible governance.

He referred, once, to global "climate change", which presumably is more acceptable to the right wing than "warming", not that there's a material difference, and his main thrust of that portion of the speech was to recommend Americans weaning themselves, not from reliance on oil, but from reliance on imported oil - let's expand drilling in the US!

What may have been most telling was the dog that barked in the night - he didn't mention stem cell research, rights for the preborn, sanctity of marriage, or any of the "culture of life" issues. Throughout much of the speech it was apparent that he is aware of the Democratic Congress he now must deal with; more subtle was his recognition-by-omission that the fundie base to which he has long pandered is not a true representation of the country's opinions.

Balancing the budget - 'twould be a lot easier without this war of choice that's costing us trillions of dollars.

No mention of Mars. Maybe we already got there?

Boomtown: Pilot

(originally published 01/23/07)

*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*

At 29:50, Joel and Fearless enter Cantrell's apartment, and the grandfather whacks Fearless below the knee with a cane. Fearless grabs his leg and drops to the floor. A third detective enters, shouts "Drop the weapon," and fires a shot into the ceiling, then shouts "Officer down!", a cry that is repeated by a uniformed cop calling it in. Fearless, leaning on a footstool, says, "Officer down?... Officer KNEELING -- not that that didn't HURT, Granddad."

I love that moment, replay it two or three times, laughing aloud, every time I watch this episode.

At 39:10, when we have seen Cantrell's backstory, and how he got to that point, to that ledge, we learn that the detective's ceiling shot is what caused Cantrell to fall. The very moment that I am replaying, that I can't get enough of, Fearless's "Officer KNEELING," is the moment Cantrell's head hits the sidewalk.

This is a perfect show.

How much longer are they going to make us wait for Season Two?

Blog for Choice

(originally published 01/22/07)

Ever since I started my first blog, I have been looking for, or attempting to create, a "No Coat Hangers" sign, with the red "ban" symbol superimposed over a coat hanger. My skills are on a par with my software; that is to say, pretty low level. But I will keep trying until I've succeeded.

Headlong into Chaos

(originally published 01/14/07)

Is it really so impossible to learn from history? Or perhaps one needs to know a little history in order to learn from it. Sending "another" 20,000 troops into the quagmire that is Iraq is the worst of all possible tactics. That's not enough to quell the various factions, and too many to have coming home in body bags. Furthermore, a significant portion of that 20K will be troops forced to stay longer than planned, not actually new troops. Imagine the morale. As well as the increase in PSTD and other problems for those who do finally return home.

The flip-flopping by Bush and cohorts on the subject of the war is as baldfaced as the false slanders they have spread about their opponents in the past. "I listen to the advice of my commanders on the ground" - no matter how many I may have to fire in order to get some who agree with me.

It will take more than one term in office for the next President to begin to fix this and all the other messes. I hope we can survive that long.