October Again

Greetings, gentle readers.
Wanted to jot some notes down based on some television viewing activities I performed this past weeks that seem to beg for some observations.

The Orville

Christopher Hitchens often to referred to the Bible as a great source of mythology and metaphors.  There are a number of iconic representations of facets of human experience that have permeated and informed much of the language of western literature.  The dove of peace, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego - all the usual tropes.  The one that interested me this week, however is the concept of the Ark; the one built by Noah, not the one that melts the faces off horrible Nazis.
As the environment of our biosphere deteriorates, and more extraterrestrial space missions are planned and built, the concept of evacuating a civilization, popping it wholesale onto some sort of enormous vessel, and transplanting it to a new locale has become more relevant.  Douglas Adams had a tremendous bit of fun with the Golgofrinchan Ark Fleet, of which only the 'B' Ark was found.
In the most recent episode of "The Orville," Seth McFarlane's live-action science fiction television series, the Ark trope is revisited, but this time in a thinly-veiled attack on Middle-Eastern Abrahamic religions.  A society has pulled up sticks and launched themselves into space, only to find that after a number of generations, they have established a theocratic government that refuses to acknowledge their situation, preferring to maintain social order through 'founding' archived documentation.
The ship is out of control, will crash into a star, and the crew of The Orville need to effect repairs in order to save this civilization.  Unfortunately, they don't just teleport to the Ark's bridge - they try to engage the brainwashed population that have only begun to question why their world has started to malfunction. 
The bottom line here is not the transparent "excommunicate Galileo" scenario, where backwoods bumpkins confront difficult concepts like gravity and celestial motion.  Nope.  In a weird left-hand turn, the issue here is misogyny.  The female head of security for the Orville is shot point-blank with a space shotgun and left for dead by the aforementioned bumpkins before the female executive officer is apprehended and brought before the head zealot inquisitor to be beaten, tortured, and drugged.  One suspects that rape would also be on the menu were it not for the content constraints of prime-time network television.
The big dynamic on display is power.  A group of men in a position of power intentionally use ignorance, superstition, demagoguery, religious fervour, and authoritarian trappings (uniforms, flags, symbols, rituals) to subjugate and control the population.  Ordinary SF stuff, since it's just an extrapolation of many current political systems.
The thing that McFarlane hits here is slightly different.  The big challenge to authority comes from women.  Women hold decision-making positions on The Orville, but for them to exercise those powers in bumpkinville would upset the order imposed by the theocratic system.  Women are treated as second-class citizens, useful only insofar as their procreative and culinary abilities allow.
And thus we find the brutal bloody, over-the-top abuse of women, notably the XO played by Adrianne Palicki.
By the end of the episode, the ship is repaired, disaster is averted, and the sunroof is opened, restoring a day/night cycle that the bumpkins could never quite piece together was absent previously.  The two conclusion that we are led to draw are:

• an enlightened society is a plural one that welcomes contributions from all of its members
• any ideology that requires restriction of information has inherent and elementary vulnerabilities

A more simplistic analysis would state that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all share their fear and hatred of women, and the sooner we shed these idiotic trappings based on revelatory scripture (perfect and unalterable words of God, as written by some goat-herder), the sooner we can get on with developing our true potential as a species.

Lucifer

During an advertising break, I listened to this gibberish, advocating viewership of the series "Lucifer": "You say that you're evil, but I know who you really are."
I nearly painted my bookshelf with beetroot when I heard that gibberish.  How many battered women in shelters are asked why they didn't leave their abuser sooner?  How many abusive relationships have been extended far beyond the point where the damage has affected children, relatives, and friends?  Incidentally, domestic abuse involves physical and psychological damage inflicted by men on women, women on men, parents on children or step-children, younger family members on elders. And what is the common factor whenever the abused is confronted?  Please nod if you've ever heard these before:

• "You don't know him the way I do."
• "You don't understand the situation.  It's just the way she is."
• "He's really not that way at all, if you get to know him."
• "But I love her.  She isn't always like this."
• "That's not who he really is.  Deep inside."

These rationalizations are heartbreaking to hear from people with broken bones, terrified children, shattered homes, and financial ruin.  Then, to hear a woman speak with Lucifer himself - the avatar of the lord of lies, author of pain, and corruptor of innocence, virtue, and youth - as not really evil is just rationalization on a colossally insane level.
Stockholm syndrome doesn't even begin to touch the level of self-delusion involved here.  I touched on similar themes 13 years ago HERE.
The bottom line is that reinforcing these self-destructive delusions is not helping anyone.  As someone who observes no evidence for a god or a devil, it is interesting to note the number of people (particularly women) who want to find the latter and presumably convert him into some sort of tame puppy. 
Bottom line:  if you want to take the abuse, have at it.  Just make sure that it's consensual, there is no collateral damage to anyone else, and that you fully understand the power and control dynamics at work.

America Ferrara

I watched a late night chat show featuring America Ferrara as a guest star.  I have nothing against the young lady.  She's energetic and ambitious, and she will do very well as a producer in the coming years.  She was asked about the success of her most recent televised sit-com series and she replied with something like the following:

"I wanted a show... because all of the shows on TV now are about who can be the best CIA agent, or who can be the best cop, or the best FBI agent..."

Is it just me, or did she just name three genres or type of television programs that feature FIREARMS?  She didn't mention the best ER doctor, or the best politician, the best forensic pathologist, or the best psychological therapist.  She babbled out the first things in her head — that all coincidentally involve shooting people.
For a country like the United States that blows $600 billion per year on "defence," it seems obvious that American culture should celebrate weaponry, arms, ammunition, and armaments.  People can celebrate the jobs created by manufacturing bombs and missiles that murder thousands of Iraqi, Afghani, Yemeni, Pakistani, and Syrian men, women, and children all the live long day.  Those jobs are great.
That enormous defence budget also can't help the 3.4 million citizens in Puerto Rico who were recently struck by hurricanes Irma and Maria.  The sick go without medicine, the young go without food, and everyone goes without power or communications.  Eight hundred thousand Puerto Ricans in New York City alone are unable to reach loved ones to find if they are alive, dead, or dying.  At last count, 6000 containers filled with emergency supplies, medicine, food, and water are docked on the island, but cannot release their cargo because of the Jones Act.  I refer to my earlier post that government expenditures are best used to maintain the welfare and well-being of the citizens of the body politic.  If the citizens of Puerto Rico are left to die, the military budget must be held to task.  If all of the citizens of Montana were to be starved and left to die of exposure and thirst, someone might raise an objection.  This is a United States property with triple the population of citizens.  But they're mostly brown folk, so I suppose that makes it permissible.
If America Ferrara doesn't see the link between her identification of militarism and federal government spending, and the deaths of all those in Puerto Rico for lack of government spending, then I find her situation dissatisfying and distressing.  She'll still be a great producer.  I just hope that she keeps her perspective.

Music

Right.  That's my venting for a while.  Like a good lapsed Catholic, I bottle things up and become miserable twitch by twitch until I unleash things like a horde of sideways-sprinting, tongue splashing Looney-Toones hounds.  Now that I've given voice to some of my grumpiness with cynical analysis, I can move on the the tracks played by my iPod during my last shower.

• Fingers and Thumbs, by the Lightning Seeds
• Mad World, by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews, written by Roland Orzabal.
• The Original Hockey Night in Canada Theme, written by Dolores Claman.
• I Shot the Sheriff, by Bob Marley and the Wailing Wailers.
• There's No Way Out Of Here, by David Gilmour
• Destroyer, by The Kinks
• Everybody Needs Somebody, by The Blues Brothers Band.

And that's it for me until my next ablutions.  It's been as hard for me to write as it has been for you to read.
Goodnight England and the Colonies,
Cheers,
—mARKUS