Sometimes corporations downplay the importance if important events because they find the implications embarrassing. Microsoft came out with wishy-washy understatement of the year today in response to word of a Infineon TPM chip hacked by Christopher Tarnovsky. The hack reportedly requires physical access to a computer, which should make it difficult to perform in most cases.
TPM stands for Trusted Platform Module. A TPM chip is used to provide hardware supported encryption capability to an electronic device. One application of such technology is adding support for multi-factor authentication, which essentially adds additional sets of qualifying data to access requirements such as a fingerprint or retina scan. Most systems require that you have an account granting access and that you prove that you actually own the account by supplying a password. A company seeking to increase their level of certainty during authentication can add another factor for example, something you must have with you in addition to something you know. A key card or fingerprint would be examples of something you have. The TPM chip is generally used to provide a higher level of confidence over the handling of such input. According to IDC, up to 100 million personal computers and servers use TPM chips.
This hack may affect many consumer devices like set-top boxes, game consoles, pay TV, and smart phones. Microsoft confirmed that its Xbox 360 uses Infineon chips to lock down unspecified components. Security experts said that the hack discovered may lead to the unlocking of satellite TV content and pirated Xbox 360 video games and third-party controllers, to which Microsoft fired off this golden nugget: “unauthorized accessories that circumvent security protocols are not certified to meet our safety and compliance standards.”
Uh…yea, a bit obvious perhaps. I think the PR guys who wrote that statement are the same ones who are posting this consumer warning in airports: “Igniting underwear bomb may expose crotch to excess heat.”
In her keynote address at yesterday’s tea party, Sarah Palin called for a “new revolution.” Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo told the audience that the Obama Presidency resulted from the lack of a “literacy test” in the last election. One must wonder what section of our national demographic he is referring to when characterizing those who voted for Obama as “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English.” Then, in an obvious reference to Palin’s comments he added, “I’ve heard we need a revolution. My friends, we already had it. We lost. I mean, what happened to us in that last election was a revolution.”
If these statements seem extreme, it is important to remember that the anger and passion that surfaced during the notorious “Town Hall meetings” of last summer have set the tone for the direction this “movement” has taken since then. Many Republicans felt it was important to tap into that anger in order to build momentum going into 2010, an election year. Words like secession and revolution can have several meanings but have often been used at rallies where people have held signs that read, “Time to water the tree of liberty.” Taken separately, these things can be seen as blowing off steam. However when use in conjunction with the “tree of liberty” reference, provokes a starkly different mental image. The quote from Thomas Jefferson reads, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out who they are referring to and whether they consider him a patriot or a tyrant.
So both Palin and Tancredo are calling for a new revolution. What is surprising is that Tancredo admits that the 2008 election was also a type of revolution. This being the case, logic dictates that Tancredo finds the result of the previous three revolutions (if you count the unsuccessful one in the 1860’s) to be unsatisfactory. The conclusion: That we must incite revolution after revolution until we get a result to the liking of every single person. Of course, that is clearly impossible. The attendees of the Tea Party Convention claim to have the interests of the U.S. Constitution in mind. It appears however, that they do not favor a constitution that codifies an electoral process where it is permissible for them to lose an election from time to time. When that happens: VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Perhaps the “Tree of Liberty” reference is actually appropriate after all. Sarah Palin and her ultra-conservatives have decided that if you do not like the way the tree blossoms, you can use the chainsaw of intolerance to bring it down. Tancredo’s comments encapsulate the very essence of intolerance and hatred.
Here is a suggestion: Honor the American electoral process, win or lose. We have had our revolution and enough blood has been shed. Why dishonor the memory of those Americans who have fallen for the cause of liberty every time the opposition wins an election? It is time to rule by law, not by passion.
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An Essay Commentary on Politics
A few people have commented recently that they thought I was a bit anti-Fox News. I thought to myself, “A bit? That’s all? Then I ain’t doin’ it right.” If you are a regular reader here you know about my street cred as a liberal but before I go on, would it surprise you to know that 10 years ago, Fox News was nearly all I ever watched? Would it surprise you to know that I was a registered Republican for 24 years? It’s true. I was. That black Republican you always heard of…I was him—that is—until I was relieved by Michael Steele. That ended in 2006 when I became an independent. Between 2006 and 2010, I went from hard-line conservative—not as hard-line as Clarence Thomas mind you but still pretty damned hard-line for a black guy—to what my conservative friend Jeramie now calls a card-carrying, bleeding heart liberal. You may remember Jeramie as the guy who called me “an angry black man.”
Where did my conservatism come from? It came from an upbringing by religious, Southern-born parents and religious extended family members, mostly. Although they all identified themselves as Democrats, I learned early on that many black people think they are required by law to be Democrats because Republicans “cater to the rich” and are exclusive of non-white cultures and peoples. Upon reaching the ripe old age of 18 and thus obtaining the right to vote, I decided to let my community know how silly this notion was by demonstrating that being American means holding to certain basic ideals, which are codified by our constitution and that no one reveres the U.S. Constitution more than conservatives. Couple that with conservative ideas about family values and religious freedom, it became obvious to me that my political outlook and the Republican Party were a match made in heaven, literally. I would not allow the expectation others had of me to prevent me from standing up for my beliefs, so there was no reason why I should be a Democrat just because I was black.
Then I discovered a TV show that seemed to speak to me directly. It was the Wally George show, which aired on channel 56 in L.A. This guy was most notable for being the father of actor Rebecca DeMornay but he was also a hero of conservatism in Southern California. I watched his show religiously every day. He had a prominently displayed picture of Ronald Reagan, a big American flag in the background, and he talked frequently about patriotism and bringing America back to traditional values. Being devoutly religious at the time, I was distressed at liberal crimes against America that he educated us to, like promoting flag burning, banning prayer in school, and teaching EVOLUTION! No! Not that! Not Evolution! Now the liberals have gone too far! By promoting this…this…SCIENCE. BAH!
Thanks to Wally, I knew what I had to do. I became eligible to vote in the 1984 election, which was just in time to join the Republican Party and cast my vote for conservative legend, Ronald Wilson Reagan. This same year, still stoked with patriotism, I joined the military to help keep those Rooskies at bay. This was fine until the Berlin Wall came down not even a decade later. That changed everything. Our cause morphed almost overnight from an ideological tension between capitalism and communism to a religious tension between the predominantly Christian West and the rapidly militarizing Muslim Fundamentalism in the Middle-East. We soon found ourselves at war with a Muslim nation during the first Iraq War. After it finished, the coalition that had joined the first campaign quickly fell apart and regional tensions spiked. Newt Gingrich brought us the Contract With America during this period. It seemed the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to the Christian values that we believed made us great.
The first thing that struck me as odd, was the way all Muslims were being vilified. It did not matter if they were progressives or not. I noticed that they were all a threat to American values in much the same way we had been told that liberals were a threat a few years earlier, and communists a few years before that. I had to question that if every differing idea is a threat, then what does that portend as to the intrinsic strength of your own belief system? Worse, the divisiveness played into the hands of people trying to halt the Middle-East peace process. As the 90’s progressed, the importance of Middle-Eastern affairs grew steadily but the prospects for peace worsened.
I had believed what we had been told in the 70s about why we supported Israel. It was strategically important to have an ally in the Middle-East because Arabs were unstable. The Israelis were democratic like us, were stable, shared our constitutional values about freedom and religion, and distrusted Arabs as much as we did. This ideological match seemed perfectly suited for the post-Soviet political paradigm. Want to see how easily such a fragile concept can be brought to its knees?
One of my former military units deployed to Israel in the mid-90s. We took our normal gear and our MRE’s. For those not familiar, MRE stands for Meal Read to Eat. It’s a meal in a pouch that has tons of calories and lasts for years. We landed in Israel and the first thing the Israelis did was confiscate our MRE’s. Why? Because they were not kosher. We had meals that had beef patties and cheese together, which was not allowed. Huh…wha…excuse me? Wait-a-minute. These people that we think are just like us are going to force us to eat kosher food even if we are not Jewish? Yes, they did. They took our food, and re-issued us the kosher, Israeli equivalent. Now on the whole, this is not that big a deal. If I mix beef and cheese, I don’t so as a matter of principle and the fact is, Israeli food is actually quite good. I don’t doubt for a second that kosher meat is healthier than the hormone-fed meat we eat in the U.S. But the fact that someone I thought of as free and democratic would force his beliefs on me, just didn’t sit right. Why should the Israeli government care if I eat meat and cheese together? Just because we were on an Israeli base? I don’t get that. And please, spare me the “when in Rome” nonsense. You either value religious freedom, or you don’t. Those values are inalienable no matter where you are. If they would force their religiously-motivated ideas about food on us, their allies, what implications does that have about their treatment of ethnic Arabs and Palestinians in Israel, since these are people they don’t like a lot? What consideration do they receive?
See how that works? Just the act of changing our food cascaded into a questioning of all the preconceived ideas I had about the Middle-East. Preconceived ideas are what you have when you have no personal experience with a subject about which you have strong feelings. Instantly you see that 99% of Americans therefore, have nothing but preconceptions about the Middle-East conflicts no matter how knowledgeable they THINK they are. I don’t care how many weekend political shows you have seen, or how many speeches you have heard, or however many degrees you have or books you have read. If you have never been there, met the people, or seen how they live, I’m betting you don’t know nearly as much as you think.
Like most Americans, I thought Israel was basically a tiny America in the Middle-East when in fact, Israel bares little similarity to the U.S. Don’t misunderstand me. I still like Israel. I think they are a good friend of the United States and I still believe they deserve our support. BUT…and believe me this is a big BUT. But—I think it is time that “BLIND” support went the way of the dodo. That’s all I’ll say about that otherwise this will turn into a book instead of an essay. The conscientious political minds among you will understand the implications of that statement.
On a side note: If you could have been a fly on the wall listening to members of my old unit talking about the MRE experience, you would have found the discussion illuminating. It was like a clinic in human behavioral analysis. The people could be divided into several basic categories. On the one hand, you had questioning pragmatists like me whose concept of Israel as the Middle-Eastern beacon of freedom was loosened a bit. You had apologists who made excuses about why every single thing Israel did was okay, no matter what that was. You had conformists who mindlessly regurgitated whatever talking points they heard on the 6 o’clock news with little or no analytical context. You had Jews who rejected the idea that the Israeli government had the right to speak for all Jews regardless their individual backgrounds and they did not mind discussing it with anyone. You had Jews who thought that the Israeli government was the living embodiment of a sort of worldwide hive mind of the Jewish people and that non-Jews simply could not understand it, should not talk about it, and that the government was beyond question in any case.
The majority of the unit members did not like giving up their MRE’s but took the view, “Well it’s their country.” What surprised me is how many of these individuals were talking subsequently about Islamic radicals and how they wanted to force Islamic law on even non-Muslims; how Muslims were so unlike us because they don’t respect your right live a non-Muslim life and if you live in their country, they expect you (among other things) to eat Halal food (the Muslim equivalent of kosher). When I asked why it was okay for Israel to take our food but not Arabs they said, “That’s different.” I learned early in life that “that’s different” is red-flag sentence. Whenever you hear it, you know the person saying it is trying to defend some bullshit, and having a difficult time of it. Ultimately, honesty demanded I recognize that there was a double-standard with regard to our view of Israel and Palestine, not just because of the food situation of course but because of a dozen things that any person watching the conflict will observe over time. As a conservative concerned about my personal integrity, that realization forced me to admit that many of our most trusted leaders were lying about our commitment to peace in the region, which for me was a bitter pill to swallow. Then I learned that if you voice any concern about the unfairness to Arabs, you are quickly attacked by the Right no matter what position you think you are speaking from.
Conservatives generally fit categories 2 and 3 of the examples above, apologists and conformists. Having suffered the Holocaust, Israel has carte blanche to do whatever they want according to apologists. Anyone even questioning the propriety of its actions will come under immediate attack. Conformists on the other hand, are ever willing to defer to recognized authority. They are certain that people in government know far more than they themselves do and thus should not be questioned, provided they are of the same party or ideology. After all, who are YOU to question a Prime Minister, President, or Pope? Absolute trust in the ultimate benevolence of the authority figures of the land, including anyone who sits behind a big desk in a big chair, is bestowed upon such authorities. Sadly, this includes news presenters, for example on Fox News, and also business executives. Conservatives especially love that last part. Any lies told by these individuals will be accepted as gospel. Opposition will be relentlessly attacked. This is why it took 6 years of Bush to reverse course. Bush and Cheney commanded the kind of authority that a conservative is loathe to cast off. The threshold of evidence required to override one’s political loyalty to them was incredibly high. They told lie after lie, year after year. Dick Cheney even shot a guy’s face off and that wasn’t even a speed-bump on his political road. You have to admit…THAT, is some loyalty.
To narrow it down a bit more, let’s focus on the conformist. If this were a 12 step program, the conformist would be what is called the enabler. The substance abuser cannot get away with half of what he does without the enabler. The substance being abused is power. The most ironic thing about conformists is that they actually believe they are among the most intelligent and well informed people around. To be sure, they generally follow the news and they try to appear well informed. Note the word “appear.” These people always have their talking points in order and they eject them in true Pavlovian fashion as a simple matter of reflex. These people like talking politics a lot. The low level of the average American’s general knowledge about politics, economics, and so forth means that a person with lots of talking points in order will seem professorial by comparison. When such people debate, you can hear all the talking points they heard on Fox News spewing forth word for word, like talking to a parrot. Even the inflection points are the same. These people hate me with a passion; mainly because I recognize them immediately and can easily smoke them out. They try to hit me with conservative-speak not realizing that I am well versed in this language and probably know it better than they do after 24 years as a Republican. When their talking points are crushed underfoot their arguments fall apart, mainly because they have never actually thought critically about their positions. They simply adopt without question, whatever they believe is the “Republican position” and there is no better place to get that than Fox News. After I shoot this down they try the religious angle. BIG MISTAKE! With a long Sunday school history and being from a family of ministers and evangelicals, most of whom I can debate to a standstill, taking the religious angle with me is like walking through a minefield wearing snowshoes. Many a Christian has shot a quick scripture at me thinking they were putting me in check, only to have me finish the scripture for them and then add the next 2 verses that demonstrate the they are using it out of context. Check and Mate. They hate that.
Okay, let’s get back to the Middle-East double-standard mentioned above. Here is another question I have after 2 Middle-East wars. Back in the 70’s during the oil embargo, I saw many reports about souring relations with the Arab world. Pragmatic journalists looking on a map questioned why it was worth alienating such a massive and resource rich region in favor of a tiny country, occupying a strategically important albeit miniscule parcel of land with relatively few resources. In fact, said country does not believe in a one man one vote democracy and practices a form of Apartheid against the indigenous population. These are facts which any honest person would say is not in keeping with our STATED principles.
The answer to this observation in the 70s and 80s was that Israel provided a stable foothold in the region, which might have become invaluable to the U.S. had we ever gone to war there. Well, after TWO WARS in which we have gone to any pains necessary to AVOID involving Israel in any way, shape, or form for fear of upsetting the Arab nations, I think it is safe to say that this reasoning was a lie. With it gone, conservatives have fallen back to old faithful. We support Israel because the Bible says that God promised the land to them. Good luck arguing that before the UN. In fact, the next time there is a significant UN hearing on the subject, feel free to use that argument but do me a favor and give me a heads up first, because this I want to see. I’ll say again, support is okay but why make it either-or? It destroys our position as intermediary. Any rational person can see this.
We got through the Clinton years without the damage to our nation that Republican leaders had promised us. Traditional family values were still tanking but it had been doing that for a generation under Republican leadership so any attempt to blame that on Clinton was yet another lie, Lewinsky scandal not withstanding. This was the point where I started to develop serious problems with conservative positions on the issues. Bill Clinton was leading our country well and despite what I thought of his personal conduct in the context of marriage, I thought that it would be immature to pretend that America had voted him Husband of the United States rather than President. I clearly recognized the disingenuous nature of the Republican complaints since they reacted entirely differently every time one of their own was caught in a similar scandal. I believed that political gain was to be sought but not at the cost of national productivity. Little by little, Republicans were loosing my trust by violating my standards of integrity but I hung in there for almost another decade.
After 9/11, Bush lead the country well for about a year. Then they lied to build support for the Iraq war. Now having spent time in the region myself, I did not really believe what I was hearing about WMD on the news. The truth is I really didn’t care why we would attack Iraq. I thought that Saddam had been yanking our chains for the last decade and so, had it coming. Bush/Cheney’s having made the choice to lie was a disastrous mistake. Every lie was like cutting the strands of a rope. After a while it begins to weaken.
Incidentally, on the subject of Bush-era politics: A great book to read is Scott McClellan’s “What Happened.” This book is probably one hundred times more illuminating than it was given credit for. Sadly, the book was completely misunderstood by liberals because the majority of them lacked the context from which to understand exactly what Mr. McClellan was attempting to communicate. I understood perfectly. I saw many comments where liberals said he covered up Bush’s horrific Hurricane Katrina response and so forth. These people were so stoked about the big things they THOUGHT they would get that they missed the plethora of real gems located in that book. Quite regretful. I won’t elaborate for brevity’s sake but if you are so inclined, read it.
Ultimately, the Bush years were painful because they stacked lie upon lie. Rumsfeld disrespected most of our European allies which did not sit well for those of us who lived in Europe. I got an ear full nearly everyday. I confess, I watched Fox News a lot back then too and fought what I thought was the good fight by using many of the talking points I heard like everyone else. Every time they were caught in a lie they found a new way to spin it. Then I started hearing rumors about problems in the housing market. I was heavily invested in REITs for a while but I got out before they went bust. When I heard about stated income loans I nearly hit the roof. It was clear that Republican deregulation efforts were overdone and we were heading for disaster. By ‘06 I was ready for a new direction so I decided to change my party affiliation and try to help brings some Dems into Congress.
I also took a lot of advice from Jim Cramer on investments. I had subscribed to his alerts since he started the service. When Lehman Brothers was rumored to have problems he assured us everything would be fine. It was not. I watched as all of the Republican-backed banking and insurance decisions threatened to destroy our economy. Everyone said we should avoid panic and ride it out. After causing our economy to melt-down, I had to hear CNBC talking heads and Wall Street journalists talking like we should continue to trust them when they were complicit in helping start that mess. They have the audacity to criticize the new President for his fiscal policy and for wanting to reign in the banks. Conservative or no, one must be a complete dullard to maintain blind support for people demonstrating such poor leadership over the last 8 years. Tax cuts? Deregulation? That’s how we got into this mess.
I had hoped that these folks would have just a little integrity and say, “Okay we tried it our way and we made some mistakes. Let’s give the Presidents plan a chance.” Ha! Cramer never admitted his mistakes. He still goes on the air today criticizing everything Obama does. Why hasn’t he criticized the CEO of BofA for not loaning money? Why doesn’t he criticize Goldman Sachs? In fact I have yet to hear him or anyone else on Wall Street recognize their own role in creating the global financial meltdown unless it was some watered down testimony before Congress. What does it say about the integrity of a person when they are unable or unwilling to acknowledge their part in things that have gone wrong?
After the Democrats took over both the legislative and executive branches of government, I thought it would be nice to see a people-mandated government with popular support. I saw all of the people I had respected since 1984 parade across the screen on Fox News and denounce this new president. My concern was not that a few hot heads got upset. My concern was the universal silence of other conservatives who missed every opportunity to call for calm. I am still waiting for someone to say, he was elected by our constitutional process and no matter your personal feelings, we should respect our system when we lose as well as when we win. I am waiting for someone to say, Democrats did not filibuster all our proposals when we were a majority so let’s accept that our influence is diminished but just make the best deals we can. The country must still be governed so let’s move forward. I’m waiting for someone to say, I may have reservations about health-care reform but saying it will kill Grandma is a lie. The ACORN voter fraud accusations were a lie. Blaming Obama for TARP is a lie. Calling him a racist is a lie. Saying he’s from Kenya is a lie. Blaming Obama for the $1.3 trillion deficit is a lie. Lie, lie, lie!
How can a party change COMPLETELY from a party of values to a party of lies in one election cycle??? How can there be so many who do not value their personal integrity above party loyalty? I am at a loss over that one.
This is what has brought me to this point. I’m exhausted from the lies. John McCain was among the leaders I trusted most. Even today he is lying about his opposition to removing the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy. He said he relied on Colon Powell when he decided it would not be good for the military. Today on live TV, Colon Powell reversed his opinion. Yesterday the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense both said they supported repealing the measure. Now, here is a test of integrity. Regardless how you feel about this, is it not hypocritical of McCain to say definitively that he will rely on the advice of military leaders only to get visibly angry and vow to continue his opposition regardless, now that military leaders have reversed their opinions? Is it not hypocritical to claim to rely on a person’s advice, while secretly knowing that you will only rely on him so long as he agrees with your position? It proves beyond any doubt that McCain was using Powell as a smoke screen to cover his own position for almost 2 decades. After respecting John McCain and following his career during the last 10 years of my time in the military, I find myself deeply ashamed of him. He has dishonored himself by not observing his given word.
This brings me full circle to my source of discomfort. Conservatives have become very crafty in their justification of their irrational fears, bigoted ideas, finger pointing, and their blatant lies. They routinely break their words, and the rank and file simply go along. Those who express fear, hatred, or intolerance are embraced as heroes. Politicians talk about secession and people cheer. Militants bring assault rifles to Presidential appearances and Fox News pundits act like it’s a joke. Considering our history with assassination, I don’t think so. And to top it off, Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann are taken seriously even though they believe that spacemen are landing in ships made of pure chocolate.
In the emotional political climate we have had for the last year, Republicans have forgotten a simple principle. The importance you place on American values is not demonstrated when things are going well and the people around you think like you do. It is displayed in how you behave when the opposite is true. Do you only embrace free speech when people speak in your favor? Do you only support freedom of religion so long as it is a religion that you share? Do you only embrace the truth when it favors your cause? Are we to uphold our Bill of Rights until we become afraid, only to suspend the parts of it that inhibit reactions based on fear? Sadly, conservatives are finding some inventive ways to sidestep our American obligations under our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and our justice system. If trying to uphold these values today gets you attacked, then you need to let your voice be heard. Remember, “”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
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The "Skinjobs"
The community of sci fi fans has eagerly awaited the return of prime time sci fi with Caprica, the prequel series of Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar ended March, 2009 to popular acclaim. The thing that was unique about Battlestar was that it appealed to a wider spectrum of viewers. Sci fi generally appeals to young males with strong but slightly less support among males well into their 50’s. Battlestar succeeded in attracting a female and non-geek audience better than any other series of its genre. As mentioned here, even my girlfriend watched it with me, which I dare say is unheard of.
Caprica seeks to continue this cross-spectrum appeal by building on what Battlestar had accomplished. Namely, it deals with everyday social issues that anyone can relate to like terrorism, prejudice, religion, envy, jealousy, infidelity, politics, and vice. Unlike other series like those of the Star Trek franchise, it eschews the clean, sterile, utopian ideal for a more gritty, down-to-earth setting. In other words, the people on the show are just like us. This spares us the nauseam that Star Trek TNG viewers were subjected to time and again when lead character Jean Luc Picard was unable to pass up any opportunity to orate over mans glorious inner virtues. Gone are the speeches on how we are imperfect, “but we can learn.” Gone are the lectures about how we no longer work for money or material wealth, “but simply to better ourselves.” Yea right. I wonder what a recession looks like in the Star Trek universe. Do we all agree to better ourselves a bit less?
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek forbade any depictions of sexuality of any kind (if you discount Kirk nailing every female he came across). In fact, cast members were banned from the show for off-screen, personal conduct. For example, one cast member’s character was notoriously killed off because she posed nude for Playboy magazine. This will certainly not happen within the Battlestar franchise because sexuality is in no short supply.
The opening sequence of Caprica begins with a raunchy night club scene. The main character in the scene walks through several rooms where some hard partying is taking place. In one of those rooms, an orgy is in full…uh…swing. There is lots of bare skin and hot chicks making out. I think the director is using a common technique whereby he establishes in the first scene the limits (or lack thereof) to which he is willing to go not only to set the mood and pace of the show but also to capture the interest of the audience. This technique also serves the purpose of immediately alienating people to which the show is not targeted; mainly young children or conservative, old-fashioned viewers who are looking for entertainment along a more wholesome vein. A scene like this in the beginning of a show is an invitation to move on if it’s not your thing.
Caprica Train Blast
The show’s storyline demonstrates the reliance that the people of Caprica have on technology. Once again, they avoid alienating the non-sci fi crowd by not relying on gadgetry as a part of the story telling or to wow us. Most of what we see in the city are things we might have today. The people are dressed like us, in typical business suits or casual wear. They drive cars and ride on the subway or inner-city train. When they kill, they use regular guns that look strikingly like the average 9mm. I’m sure we even have Battlestar versions of the gun control movement and pro-gun lobby. Viewers polled during the last Battlestar series said that they related better to the story because there was little or no technology that they found unrealistic like “ray guns” or transporter beams. In fact, many people found it ironic to find a doctor on a spaceship who found it difficult to quit smoking. There was also occasionally problems with the equipment malfunctioning or an engineer that found a way to “MacGyver” a ship by patching it together with some duct tape and bubble wrap. All of this reinforced the ultimate conclusion of Battlestar: They are us. It also contributed to the critical acclaim the series received since by limiting the wow factor of gadgets, it forced writers to focus on story telling and forced actors and directors to think about how to engage the audience through the performance. The result was nothing short of amazing to fans.
Two of the moral dilemmas faced by the characters form the basis of the plot. The first, is a terrorist act where members of a movement that seeks to elevate “the one true god” to prominence, blows up a train. The second, is the ethical dilemma of blurring the line between life and artificial intelligence. It is hard to not see the parallels between these elements of the story and what is going on in our world today. The “one true god” storyline will answer the questions viewers had in Battlestar about why the Cylons, who are machines are so hell bent on elevating “the one true god” among their own population, if you can call it that. The granting of sentience and “feelings” to artificially intelligent beings shows us not only how the Cylons were created and why but also gives us some idea as to whether or not they really are sentient or simply robots that are programmed to act that way convincingly.
From what I have seen thus far, I think this show has the potential to be as good as Battlestar Galactica, even without Tricia Helfer (a serious handicap). It also may be the cement in the recasting of the sci fi genre into something more mainstream. We now have an example of a sci fi show that can provide artistic excellence and captivate an audience without the help of rayguns or ship’s captains that nail everything that moves. I confess, I still miss my weekly dose of Trek. Hopefully with this paradigm shift, we can have our space cake and eat it too.
Religious leaders are having a particularly difficult time communicating their ideals to the faithful of late. Are priests, ministers, and spiritual leaders falling out of step with the collective values of society or is this the way it has always been? Members of clergy hold a position of trust and religious youth are often trained to accept ideas from them without processing those ideas through the personal filter of life experiences or values. In fact, many people hold values that are instilled in them by the people in their lives that they trust the most. One reason why religious organizations in the industrialized world are declining in influence is that new, secular sources of ideas instill values and critical thinking skills in people before traditional or religious ideologues have the opportunity to instill scripted, uncompromising “morals” which defy the norms of behavioral logic.
Today, it is easy to be dismissive of religious edicts but one must never forget that the church once wielded the power of life and death. In centuries past, excommunication by the Church was life-changing and often fatal. Individuals would lose their jobs, they’d be shunned by friends and family, forced out of their homes, and run out of town. According to tradition, such a person would be condemned to burn in hell forever as a son of perdition and after death, be denied the right of burial on family plots, consecrated land, or even within city limits.
Consider Joan of Arc who was declared a heretic and burned alive by agents of the Church for claiming that she could talk to God. The Church’s official position was that only priests could do that. Protestants were killed in droves and wars were fought for this very reason and the Church still maintains the same opinion today.
People today hear about papal dictates and chuckle like it’s no big deal. When the Pope says you should not use birth control, many Catholic women say, “Is he going to have the baby for me?” There was a time—not nearly as long ago as you might think—where such attitudes would be highly perilous and self-destructive. I can hear the Evangelical thinking, “It still is, you just don’t know it. You will answer to God for those words.” I must confess that if the same person said that to me my response would be something like, “Up yours pal.”
One should educate oneself and cast off the pangs of guilt, superstition, and ignorance. This can make you less susceptible to fears of the bogeyman coming to get you because you don’t let a guy who is just like you except for some robes, tell you what to do. Oh by the way, are those robes pure silk? Imagine how many Haitians earthquake victims could be fed if you sold those fine vestments and gold chalices in favor of food, water, and medicine. Suffice it to say, I make every effort to respect every religion and respect each individual’s right to live according to their beliefs, provided those beliefs do not interfere with my lifestyle or my beliefs. I have heard it said that you have the right to make a fist and swing that fist as much as you like. But your right to swing your fist ends at my face.
Some religious ideology seems petty and almost comical. An example of this would be Pope Benedict XVI chiming in about the film Avatar. With all the hunger, war, and strife going on in the world, why would the Pope think it necessary to voice an opinion of something some might call trivial? The Vatican press and radio have warned of the dangers of worshiping nature because a major theme of the film deals with the indigenous inhabitants of the planet Pandora (called the Navi) living in harmony with the forces of nature on their world and revering a deity called Eywa which lives in a network of sacred plants (the word worshiping would be too strong since this is never depicted explicitly). The Pope warned that the “egalitarian vision” depicted whereby the Navi achieve an equilibrium with nature and do not elevate their importance in nature above that of other species, opens the way to “neo-paganism.” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said that Pope Benedict XVI fears this will turn nature into a “new divinity.” Despite the assertions that Avatar has introduced a new form of spirituality, it is actually not without precedent in modern times. The Native American people worshiped the Great Spirit and many of their faith’s basic tenets dealt with how they should interact with nature.
Other religious gaffs are more hurtful. The most obvious example of this is 700 Club evangelist Pat Robertson calling Haiti “cursed” after the 12 January earthquake. He tragically claimed that the entire nation made a pact with the devil during the slave uprising, which led to their 1804 defeat of France and independence as a nation. He said that the slaves (ALL of them) asked the devil to help them in exchange for servitude and that the devil said, “Okay, it’s a deal.” The quotes are not a mistake, he actually quoted the devil on national TV (Albeit without proper attribution. I hear the devil’s lawyers are up in arms about it.). Then, he cleverly attempted to give it the ring of truth by following the statement with the phrase, “true story.” How could he have been privy to that conversation? Were there listening devices or is there a certified transcript somewhere that he is not sharing with the rest of us? Either way, that is a grievous and damnable accusation to hurl at people who are hurting enough already. Where is the expression of love that Christianity says God has for them? John Stewart did an excellent piece about this where he lists about a dozen things from the Bible that Robertson could have said to comfort the people of Haiti but instead, Robertson decided to rub salt in the wound and say basically that they had it coming. Perhaps Mr. Robertson can tell us if the Archbishop killed in the quake had sold his soul as well..? Or maybe the entire student body of a collapsed elementary school where ALL of the children were killed???
As you might imagine, this comment was not well received in Haiti or anywhere else outside of the conservative talk radio crowd. Raymond Joseph, Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., delivered a scathing response.
In previous times, people would have been afraid to speak criticisms of religious figures aloud for fear of reprisal from either the Church or from God himself. Today, subjugation of world opinions is not so simple and thank goodness for that. Pat Robertson has been universally condemned for what he said. Does this mean that religious freedoms are under attack? I don’t think so. But liberty must not only guarantee freedom to worship as one chooses but must also guarantee freedom FROM religion as well, if one chooses to live that way. Modern communities are adopting this position at an ever-increasing pace. This means that the days where religious leaders could get the reaction they wanted by wagging their fingers at people and prognosticating futures of doom and gloom are waning. The need to convey religious values in a way that highly educated populations can relate to is a reality that religions must adapt to in order to survive long term. One still has the freedom to voice off-kilter opinions if one chooses but they must also accept whatever consequences that poorly chosen words will illicit. Notice has been served on religious figures the world around. Insensitivity and a lack of decorum will continue to sap their credibility and with it, their ability to influence the course of society. Hiding behind the banner of speaking the cold, hard truth only goes so far and it seems that shield has been worn out. If so, they have only themselves to blame.
