Our Star Blazers

For geeks of a certain age, the animated series Star Blazers is a powerful touchstone. Adapted from the Japanese series Space Cruiser Yamato, Star Blazers was marketed to kids but always felt a bit out of step with other kids fare, even fellow Japanese import/adaptation Battle of the Planets.

Doubtless, some of this stems from a premise (Earth is dying as a result of radioactive bombing and can only be saved through great risk and sacrifice) that reflects the history and tradition of its home country. Of course, as the original incarnation of Battlestar Galactica showed, a heavy duty premise is no guarantee of substantive programming. What made Star Blazers stand out, even with numerous edits to pass muster with American censors, was a willingness to embrace the moral ambiguities of war, even a war waged in the name of survival.

Even the good guys were pushed to the ethical edge, and even the bad guys were capable of moving beyond their obsessions to realize that "war does not allow us to be our better selves." This, along with the cool ships of course, is why Star Blazers is a treasured memory three decades later while so many other programs are enjoyed ironically if at all.

Against this backdrop, the news of a live-action Star Blazers/Yamato movie opening today/tomorrow in Japan (depending on where you are relative the international dateline) was cause for genuine excitement. That's not to take anything away from the animated show, it's just that the emotional core of the story always felt like something you wanted to see portrayed by flesh and blood actors. The results could, of course, be disastrous, but the early indications such as the trailers on YouTube and some early screenings (http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/SearchAudience/News1/Space_Battleship_Yamato_Live_Action_Review_3908.aspx) suggest they got it right. Time and perhaps an imported DVD will tell.

A Thought for the Season

I can't recall where this joke (or is it a moral?) came from, but it goes something like this. A man dies and is greeted at the Pearly Gates by Saint Peter. Saint Peter congratulates the man on getting into heaven but adds that because it was such a close call, he first is going to be shown the fate he narrowly escaped in Hell.

Saint Peter shows the man an enormous room whose tables filled with a lush banquet of every culinary delight known to man. At first, the newcomer is confused by the bounty laid out in front of the condemned until he notices that the people sitting at the tables picking up the food can't bend their arms. When the realization hits him that this is how they'll spend eternity, he asks Saint Peter to take away the vision.

Saint Peter then leads him through the gates and takes him to an enormous room whose tables are filled with every culinary delight known to man. His surprise turns to shock when he realizes that the people here can't bend their arms either. As Saint Peter leads him to a vacant seat at the end of the table, the man asks him how this is any different than hell. Saint Peter explains that in heaven people have learned to feed each other.

It Was 47 Years Ago Today That The Doctor Took Those Folks Away

On November 23rd 1963, on the heels of news coverage of President Kennedy's assassination, a most unusual program made its debut on the BBC. It started with a policeman walking his beat and ended with a mysterious old man plunging himself, his grand-daughter and her overly inquisitive teachers back in time. 47 years, 10 lead actors, 700+ episodes and thousands of non-television spin-offs later, Doctor Who remains one of the most unique shows on television.

Over those 47 years, Doctor Who has had dalliances with politics, usually emphasizing a strong humanist bent over partisan leanings. Toward the end of the show's original run in the late 1980s, though, the political aim became a bit clearer with Britain's then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as the target. This was most apparent in the 1988 story The Happiness Patrol, where acclaimed actress Sheila Hancock played a superficially benevolent, slogan-spouting despot who even apolitical fans could guess represented Mrs. Thatcher.

The Happiness Patrol is by no means one of Doctor Who's best moments, but even after two decades it remains among the most memorable. With a sometimes surreal production design and often witty script, it looks like nothing else on TV except perhaps the cult-classic The Prisoner as done on a shoestring budget. Occasionally, the story falls victims to Doctor Who's cliches (e.g. running up and down corridors), but there are moments that leave you transfixed.

Chief among them is when the Doctor confronts a pair of soldiers preparing to shoot a group of protesters. Armed with nothing more than his convictions, the Doctor faces them down, forcing them to see the implications of what they're preparing to do and making them realize they're better than that. Equal parts life-affirming and unsettling, it's a moment that encapsulated much of the appeal of Doctor Who. And if by chance that doesn't sound appealing, try another episode because it'll be wonderfully different, just like the Doctor.

The Party of Lincoln? I Wonder What Lincoln Would Say About That.

If my GOP friends ever asked me why I think the "party of Lincoln" has become the party of bigotry, I would point them to House Bill 295 recently introduced in the Texas legislature by Republic Representative Leo Berman. The bill would would require any candidate for president or vice president of the United States "to show his or her birth certificate to the Texas secretary of state."

According to Berman, "This bill is necessary because we have a president whom the American people don't know whether he was born in Kenya or some other place." The bill itself is reported to read that, "the secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen."

In 2008 John McCain who actually was born outside of the United States on a military base gets a bi-partisan resolution in the Senate affirming that he's a natural born US citizen. One of the bill's co-sponsors, Barack Obama, gets targeted in a Republican controlled legislature. Enough said.


Read More: http://nation.foxnews.com/birthers/2010/11/17/texas-republican-files-birther-bill

What's the GOP Equivalent of a Circular Firing Squad?

It's been said that Democrats shoot their electoral mistakes (i.e. wounded) while Republicans simply run them again. Obviously, that's not always true, Adlai Stevenson got two chances to lose to Eisenhower in the general election and Al Gore probably could have gotten the 2004 nomination. Still, the respective examples of Dukakis and Nixon seem to tell the broader tales for those parties.

Against that backdrop, the divide within the GOP surrounding the prospect of Sarah Palin running for President in 2012 shows that Democrats don't have a total monopoly on an aversion to damaged goods. While Palin was not the top of the GOP ticket in 2008, it's hard to dispute that she ultimately became its focal point, certainly generating far more buzz than Obama's VP pick. Under typical circumstances, Palin would seem to be a natural front-runner for the nomination and in some circles she is. To many, though, she is a worrying wild-card who's seen as having cost the party one election and poised to lose them another.

A lively example of this friction can be found in a recent editorial by conservative columnist and former Nancy Reagan speech-writer Mona Charen on the conservative "journalism" site townhall.com (http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2010/11/19/why_sarah_palin_shouldnt_run/page/1) and the posted reactions of readers. Charen criticized Palin for seeking the path of celebrity rather than building up her qualifications for higher office by studying up on policy issues and devoting herself to the governorship of Alaska. In Charen' view, Americans will be tired of political rock stars like Barack Obama and eager for basic managerial competence in 2012. Had Palin stayed in office, rather than resigning midway through her term to exert her influence on the 2010 election to mixed effect, Charen feels she would have been well positioned to be the GOP nominee. Instead, Palin has diminished herself by picking fights with the "lamestream media", joining the reality show circuit and otherwise undercutting the proposition that she can convince the independent voters who are crucial to winning the general election, that she offers competent, stable leadership.

Like many Americans across the political spectrum, I'm troubled by the idea of President Palin. Though I concede that the current occupant of the White House entered with a relatively thin resume, Barack Obama offset that deficiency with a sober temperament and a thoughtful mindset. Whether or not you approve of Obama's handling of certain issues, Palin's resume as a small-state governor and smaller-town mayor doesn't stand up to two years as President for anyone but the fiercest partisans. Throw in her attack-dog tendencies the moment she perceives someone (usually someone in "the media") has done her and/or her family wrong and you're left with a potential candidate who seems unelectable to most Democrats and independent voters.

While Charen probably sees Obama's performance as POTUS in a harsher light than I do, her critique of Palin seems (pardon the expression) fair and balanced. It's a telling sign of how hyper-partisan the current climate is, though, when questioning the presidential qualifications of your party's biggest star is enough to get you branded a Republican on Name Only. RINO seems to be the worst insult imaginable in today's GOP, and it gets thrown around quite a bit in the comments section for Charen's article. I haven't yet seen the reaction to Barbara Bush's comments about a Palin run, but I can imagine she's inflamed the tempers of a number of "real conservatives"

The Hysterical Channel

It wasn't so long ago that the History Channel was so dominated by credible historical documentaries. As this graphic makes it clear, history ain't what it used to be.

One in the Bush

It's not unexpected that a politician, especially a former President, trying to plant flags on the battleground of their legacy would engage in some degree of spin control. Based on his interviews with the Today Show's Matt Lauer, however, Bush 43 (aka former President George W. Bush) exists in a world where objective reality is simply irrelevant. When asked (what passes for a hardball question these days) about the surge in federal spending and by extension deficits during his time in office, Bush 43 unleashed a stream of rationalizations that made even "Slick Willie" seem like the ultimate straight talker. Unknown to us mere mortals who view deficits in terms of how much how many dollars more an entity spends than it takes in, the proper way to assess them is relative to The country's gross domestic product. Translation, as long as everyone around you is making lots of money, it doesn't matter that you're spending significantly more that you earn. Writing as someone who works for a profitable, well-run company this attitude seems beyond insane. Doubtless, none of this will register with Bush partisans, many of whom will vilify Bush 43's successor for driving up the deficit and mortgaging our children's future.

Election Day

I could almost stomach the idea of the GOP getting control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate if I knew that Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell wouldn't win. While I may disagree with a lot of GOP candidates, I believe those two are genuinely dangerous for America. Speaking of dangerous, New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is another frightening prospect. Then again, so is Jerry Brown in California. Politics is always a mixed bag, where voters are often faced with the lesser of two evils, but that's no excuse not to vote if you're eligible. If you're eligible to vote and you don't do it, then your complaints are merely whining.