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03 November 2001
The Starship Boobyprize

I've given Enterprise several episodes now. I'm not all that impressed. When my eight-year-old tells me that a plot is ridiculous because "it's too obvious," that should be a sign that something is wrong. Well, there's a lot wrong. More things, in fact, than I can count conveniently. They all come down to one cause: intellectual laziness by the production supervisors. (Or worse, but let's not go there yet.)

Characters

• Why does Hollywood insist on commanders whose names are crosslisted under "frag" in any decent dictionary of military history? All due respect to Scott Bakula, who is a decent actor, but Captain Queeg showed more care for his crew.
• Would somebody please find some recreation for the crew? They seem to have nothing to do except work and occasionally eat (which is interesting, because just as with NCC–1701, there don't appear to be any toilets on board).
• Doctor Flox (yet another example of poor naming; a delicate flower for a doctor?) has been used essentially as an eiron, but none of the remaining characteristics of that kind of work appear. And someday, somebody is going to explain to Hollywood producers that the kind of physician who is both interested in and competent in nonhuman biology is usually completely unfamiliar with patient care.
• The Science Officer has yet to do anything scientific. Instead, she's been used as a protocol officer, a walking encyclopedia, and a ventriloquist's puppet for expressing awkward options in an awkward manner. Further, she doesn't even act consistent within episodes, let alone from episode to episode. These are signs not of bad acting, but of bad scripts.

Plot

I'm not going to bother listing plot problems. There are too many. Enterprise has already sunk into clichés for its plot devices. Really, now: male pregnancy? Followed by a cheap-and-easy abortion that doesn't even harm the fetus? (We won't get into the biochemical niceties involved.)

Environment

• Starship captains do not lead away teams. They don't compound the error by bringing their first officers along, and often the second officers, with no backup (armed or not). I don't care if Bakula is the star and needs to be in most scenes to justify his salary. As much as we laugh about "red shirts," their absence in Enterprise is not a benefit.
• Speaking of captains, the command structure of the Enterprise is all wrong. The first officer is not going to be the chief engineer. There don't appear to be any lieutenant commanders on board. The helmsman will not be an ensign (navigator, perhaps), but a lieutenant. And we have yet to see a single enlisted person have more than two lines in an episode.
• Some day, someone will develop a lightweight helmet that integrates communications, lighting or other vision enhancement, and some protection from falling objects. But not, apparently, in a Star Trek-related context.
• Some day, the bridge of a starship is going to include seatbelts, circuit breakers, fire-suppression systems, and more than one entry/exit point. There will also be a CIC used for fire control, instead of running fire control from the bridge.
• There's no excuse for the poor marksmanship with personal weapons, particularly as they appear to be recoilless.

Given the number of Voyager alumni/ae associated with Enterprise, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the problems. The rot in Voyager began at the top; there are disturbing signs of history repeating itself in Enterprise.

And why is this entry on Saturday? Because that's when Enterprise is on around here—the UPN station is only UPN on the weekends, being WB during the week.

07 November 2001
Reflexes

This entry is largely going to consist of responses to a couple of other conversations that appear to be at various points in NAW, in hopes both of stirring the pot a little to make a better stew and getting a rant out of my system. Or three. <SARCASM>But I'd never do anything so unprofessional as rant.</SARCASM>

I. Baiting the Clueless Caroline described baiting JWs in a very polite fashion. I'm not so polite, particularly given all of the signs I leave about that proseletyzing is verboten here. In no particular order:

• "Why should I accept your interpretation of an inelegant and inaccurate translation of the Bible when you can't interpret the 'No Soliciting' sign on the door?"
• "I'm a lawyer. I'm going to Hell no matter what I do, so piss off."
• "Do you understand what a meszussah is? You see the one right here? Now go away and figure it out." OK, it was left by the previous tenant and I'm too lazy to take it off, but I've always been fond of using convenient visual aids. This is particularly effective in a moderately strong Berlin accent.
• The most evil one, and one that I've been using for a number of years: "I'm a Satanist, and I need a new sacrifice. Care to come in?"
• Over the last few years, when they're persistent (as in another round follows quickly), I've been quoting the Q'ran and its real directions concerning "infidels" (which do not resemble the popular conception of jihad or "conversion by the sword" in the slightest). Even after all these years, my intonation is still supposed to be pretty good. After a minute or two of this, they're usually so confused that they try to find easier prey.

No, as a matter of fact I'm not a particularly nice individual. Did you really need to ask?

Under the assumption that actions speak louder than words, I reject all fundamentalism in all of the major religions, for a very simple reason: None of the major religions, in the literal reading of their core texts, support prosetelyzing the "heathens." They all demand that those being converted come to the faith, not have the faith carried to them. If fundamentalism requires living by the literal word, that should be enough to end the practice. I don't need to be converted to any religious sect that is so ignorant of its foundations that its "fundamentalism" is nothing more than reactionary power politics designed by its leaders to maintain ignorance and trample anyone who doesn't look just like they do. Faith is an individual matter to which each individual is entitled. "Organized religion," however, is nothing more than politics for second sons.

II. We've Got Both Kinds Here Trey (31 Oct 01) and Ron have been discoursing upon the age-old new author's dilemma: "Am I going to be judged on the quality of my work or whether I'm known to the editor?" Well, it's not an exclusive or. In reality, writers, and particularly new writers, get judged on both, on a sort of a sliding scale. The writing certainly has to be at least semiliterate, and a new writer can't get published without either some name recognition or writing that is a helluva lot better than semiliterate. And, in either case, quite a bit of good fortune (not pure "luck," but closer to "perfect timing").

Ron, in his continuation, notes that he finds it unlikely that the individuals who are getting their names on the cover of Analog and Asimov's are unknown to the editors. This is a classic chicken-and-egg situation that does nothing to meet the concerns of the newbie writer. Are they on the cover because they're known, or known because they're on the cover? But it's more than just schmoozing, as Trey implies. If schmoozing ability was the key, I can name about 25 marginally socialized yet well-known writers who would not be "published"—and these are just the ones I know personally. Instead, I believe that writing ability and "visibility" (for lack of a better term) have different influences at different stages of the acquisition process. This is consistent with both my own experiences in publishing and what litigation has shown me.

1. Visibility probably matters the most at the beginning of the process, because it's the primary means of getting into a more-closely-read portion of the slush pile. This isn't always direct knowledge; sponsorship—for example, a submission to Analog that is sponsored by a member of the Analog Mafia—is probably more important. The reason this matters is that in most publishing environments, more acceptable material is coming in every week than can be used in a year. At least, it's acceptable when compared to the dreck that dominates the list, whether books or shorter works, of every publisher out there.
2. Once into that more-closely-read portion of the slush pile, the quality of the writing really does matter. Although there is no objective test for what's "better," every editor is comparing material to that he or she has already published, often unconsciously. That's why so much material seems similar: it was easier, or perhaps even just possible, to compare it to what has gone before. That marketing dorks would rather replicate success—even someone else's—than take a risk on something new is becoming more and more influential. Of course, this has an unfortunate tendency to squelch new voices.
3. At the end, though, virtually every submission that makes it to the "I could buy this" requires another look at the author's visibility. There is a sad, unfortunate, and probably untrue emphasis on "branding" in the current publishing environment—and the primary brand is the author's name. (That's demonstrably incorrect, but the demonstration is not one paid attention to by the publishing community.) This is a slightly different aspect of visibility. On the one hand, schmoozing can be less important for someone already established. On the other hand, editors, particularly of books, want some assurance that authors can be made Presentable for publicity purposes.
4. Then there's the blacklist. Every publisher and editor has one, even if it's not consciously used. For example, when my group took over the Law Review editorial board, the last year's Articles Editors took the three of us to a local bar one evening and gave us the blacklist. This included about 20 names from whom we could count on submissions. (Reminder: the slush pile at a top-20 law review is around 900 articles, and there is space for ten to fifteen of them.) Several of them were on the list due to having been assholes previously; a few, unfortunately, were on there due to past problems with academic integrity; a couple more were on there for other reasons. We continued the tradition the following year, after adding three names to the list ourselves.

In the best of all possible worlds, none of this would matter. This is not the best of all possible worlds.

III. I Can See for Miles I was under the mistaken impression that "standard" means "standard." Those of you using Netscape browsers (particularly version 4.7x, the last stable version thanks to AOL's mismanagement of the software-development process) probably wonder why this page looks so funky. I've finally nailed it down. It's a blatant incompatibility with the Cascading Style Sheets standard. Basically, one can't include a style that sets the text alignment of an element in anything except a <p> or <hx> element, or Netscape decides that any table in which that style designation appears will perforce be flush left (even if the table is centered, flush right, justified, or wrapped). The standard, however, says that unused or irrelevant aspects of a style are to be ignored.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. AOL has been blatantly doing everything it can to undermine standards since version 1.0. Care to try exchanging a binary attachment of over 384k? Think you can do it reliably? Not a chance—because AOL's software implements only a subset of MIME, which has been a standard for fifteen years.

So, at least in the current version, IE5.0x (again, the last stable version) is the lesser of the two major evils. (Opera's inability to nest certain nestable elements disqualifies it, as does its pitiful implementation of scripting.) Being grateful to Bill Gates does not come naturally to me; I'm still a proponent of WordPerfect for serious and academic writing.

10 November 2001
Eine kleine Nichtmusik

Against my better judgment, I watched the Tuesday-on-Saturday "all-singing, all-dancing" Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You should keep in mind that I thought the movie was vastly better than what little of the TV series I've seen. The TV series isn't bad per se, but merely misses a lot of opportunities. Just a few observations about this episode:

• With the exception of Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), Spike (James Marsters), and Tara (Amber Benson), none of these actors should be allowed to sing—even in the shower (unless, perhaps, Norman Bates is nearby)—until they get some serious musical training. And the "composer" needs some lessons, too. Perhaps this is just the arrogance of most performers, who generally think that self-perceived skill at x indicates similar skill at y. (Too often, they're right, at least about the equivalence in skill level.)
• The episode marks a truly missed opportunity to double the characters against their own demons. Instead, they each manage to blame someone or something else for their own failures.
• The lyricist—Joss Whedon, who apparently did everything else, too—needs to learn to use poetry for implication, not as rhyming or versical prose. The end result was so pathetically obvious that it wasn't worth versifying.
• Would someone please send the choreographer back to the grave?
• I suspect that the final point of this is that "opposites attract." Yeah, right. Nobody has ever handled that theme before.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from TV. But I do remember the consistently excellent writing of Hill Street Blues, Easy Street (cancelled after less than a full season), and a couple of other shows in the last quarter of a century. It is possible. But even rarer than in print.

16 November 2001
The Madness of George III

The President takes an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Not to defend the territory of the United States (or, for that matter, of Dinosaur Oil) against all opposition at whatever cost. George III has just proven that he doesn't understand the difference. He has done so in a manner that, had I not already resigned my commission, would force me to do so—because his actions (and those of General Ashcroft) are clearly and completely unconstitutional, and require the military to participate.

Call me a hidebound traditionalist, but I'm under the obviously mistaken impression that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments actually mean something. And that the US signatures on the Geneva and Hague Conventions, which under firmly established constitutional doctrine trump any and all legislation or executive actions, mean something. Establishing kangaroo courts with no realistic appeal, and then trying individuals who (in all probability) do not even understand American English well enough to defend themselves, is unacceptable as a matter of constitutional law. That's sufficient for me as a commissioned officer—because the oath of commissioning includes that very same requirement to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Before the part about obeying the orders of the President and superior officers.

That this policy proves that the US cannot be trusted, and certainly gives an enormous propaganda victory to those who would portray the US as the Great Satan, only proves the madness of George III. It was bad enough to see the Kennedy nepotism in action; at least they were relatively bright individuals, whatever their other failings. But now we have a not-too-bright madman in power. Colin Powell has been kept busy putting out other fires; based on comments in his autobiography, I find it hard to believe that he supported Bush's executive order.

20 November 2001
Viacom Viagra

In the 22d century and afterward, impotence will not be a problem for Starfleet officers: all one needs is a grade of O-4 (Lieutenant Commander) or higher and an assignment to whichever Enterprise is currently in service. Service on the Enterprise also provides lots of opportunity for sex with drug-free, disease-free exotic partners, too. Seriously.

This is not to say that sex should never enter into filmed/televised science fiction, but that the stereotype has made sexual relations little more than a joke. Whether the most significant problems would occur with the more senior officers, or with others, is yet another question. I spent the majority of my active duty tour as a commanding officer, and thus had more access to the grapevine than did the average bear. There certainly were problems with sexual conduct—and misconduct—among the more-senior officers. However, the focus was necessarily on a much more junior age cohort: 20-28 year olds. That translates to O-1 to O-3 (in Starfleet terms, Ensign to a relatively new Lieutenant) or enlisted personnel up to E-6.

In The Worlds of Star Trek, David Gerrold postulated that the correct premise for any successful episode was "Kirk Has a Decision to Make." There has been precious little of that for nearly a decade now. The fifth season of TNG is the last time it was consistently a consideration, even if the decisions were all too often artificial ones. DS9 wasted some fine, classically trained actors on fluff and "who's going to hit on Jadzia this week?" Voyager was from the start a horribly conceived mishmash that never established a coherent paradigm. Enterprise is sinking toward that level.

Yes, there is a connection here. Last week's episode involved Captain Archer jeopardizing his mission, his command, and himself for a passing fancy for a pharmacist. No competent commanding officer would allow a subordinate to engage in that kind of idiocy, particularly in an isolated command. Yes, people slip up. But there are specific consequences, both in mission efficiency and effectiveness and in disciplinary action. There have been virtually no disciplinary actions taken in the entire Star Trek pantheon that have mattered. The closest that the disciplinary system has come to having a real effect on central characters has involved acquittals.

The major problem is that Star Trek operates under a "self-containment" paradigm: each episode must resolve the central conflict presented in it. That makes it hard for, say, Hoshi to begin an affair with an enlisted crewmember in her department, start to decay in her performance, perhaps make bad decisions based on this relationship, and end up in front of Archer for discipline on very unclear evidence. The Captain of a vessel afloat, and traditionally of a starship, is the most powerful tyrant in the human experience. Since this also implicates raising children—the underlying paradigm of Enterprise—it would reinforce the series structure. It's not going to happen, however, because it would require a continuing story segment over six to eight episodes, and that's simply not possible due to the production structure.

21 November 2001
Thirty Seconds to Midnight

During the so-called Cold War—it was war, it just didn't involve troops in constant combat along a continuous front—the Bulletin maintained the Nuclear Clock, symbolizing the nearness of nuclear war. Originally set at fifteen minutes to midnight, it never got closer than a minute. Now, years after the end of the Cold War, one must wonder what time it is.

For the moment, leave aside the possibilities of nuclear warfare involving any of the established nuclear powers, from the US to Pakistan. (That last is particularly worrisome.) Leave aside the probabilities of biological and chemical warfare, however effective they may be; delivery is proving to be far more difficult than the scaremongers anticipated, although still easy enough to be done under some circumstances. Focus on nukes. Or their equivalent.

A nuclear weapon has one purpose, and one purpose only: the instanteous release of large amounts of energy in a small space. The following radiation damage is at best a collateral effect, despite the rumors of "neutron bombs." A 1980s tactical nuke typically had a yield of 1–7 kilotons of 2,4,6 trinitrotoluol (TNT), or 5x10¹²–3.5x10¹³ joules. At the high end, this is slightly more than a third of the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The "plan" for building a nuke derived from the 1970s article based on open sources in The Progressive would have created a weapon at, or slightly below, the low-end tactical nukes. This is still a frightening amount of energy.

The mathematically challenged are advised to skip the table and look just at the conclusion.

Energy content of one gallon of JP4 (jet fuel)	1.42x108  J
Energy content of fully-fueled Boeing 767	3.41x1012 J
	0.68kT

Times three, and potentially more, is for all practical purposes a tactical nuclear weapon. Admittedly, the energy of the fuel isn't released instantaneously; on the other hand, this doesn't include the effects of kinetic energy (on the close order of 10¹⁰ joules at 510 mph), either.

22 November 2001
The 2001 Turkey Awards

Yet again, the preliminary awards. Rather than beat a dead bird, I'm excluding items related to 11 September from consideration. Your mileage may vary, and probably will if you actually like the music from Star Wars.

• The Greasy Gravy Award goes jointly to AOL and Microsoft who are playing "Any Monopoly You Can Build, I Can Build Bigger." A Dishonorable Mention goes jointly to the FTC, FCC, and Department of Justice for letting them get away with it.
• The Red-Tide Oyster Stuffing Award goes to the Hon. Thomas Penfield Jackson for believing that, however outraged he was by the facts he was seeing, he was above the minimal ethics rules that prevent jurists from commenting on pending litigation before them. I used to think he was a good judge; but there's more to being a good judge than just writing good opinions. (Of course, I've just jeopardized any appearance I might have in the DC federal courts, but that's just too bad.)
• The Broken Wishbone Award goes to the RIAA for its overreaching on supposed piracy dangers and attempts to reimpose copy protection as a way of life—without really passing the benefits on to the artists.
• The Golden Gristle Award goes to iPublish for its continued false and deceptive advertising campaign (and if you've been taken in, contact me…) and outrageous contract. Those turkeys have more chutzpah than Steve Case! On second thought, they have exactly as much chutzpah as Steve Case… because, if you follow the money, it ends up at AOL.
• The Crabapple Pie Award goes to Hugo whiners who have complained, citing various ridiculous and invalid reasons, that awarding the novel Hugo to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is either a travesty of justice or a crime against ghod. If you don't like the result and didn't vote, sod off. If you voted and still don't like the result, look up "sour grapes" in the dictionary. N.B. I did vote; my first choice was another book, which I found quite a bit superior; but I do understand the nature of popular-vote awards.
• The Brussels Sprout Award goes to Sony, for The Phantom Reviewer. It's not like there are no Hollywood Whores out there who would have been willing to give the same (or perhaps even more gushingly favorable) review!
• The Dried-Out Breastmeat Award goes to John Williams, who (as usual and to be expected) produced a grossly overdone soundtrack for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's [Sorceror's] Stone. It was really loud, really obnoxious—and really tough to swallow. AOLTimeWarner is racking up some real winners this year…
• The Rancid Drumstick Award goes to Dr. John Lange—better known as John Norman, the author of the Gor "books"—who tried to turn his exclusion from the Philcon program into a debate over political correctness. As Teresa Hayden Nielsen quite properly pointed out in the Locus letters section, perhaps his exclusion was at least partly due to the fact that he's a boring panelist. I've never heard of a boring philosophy professor before; have you?

28 November 2001
Giblet Brains

Since the last entry was the Turkey Awards, it's time to talk about true stupidity. We all have our favorite inanities in others that drive us just nuts. Among my favorites are drivers from out of town who are convinced that driving in the left lane means at least 10mph under the speed limit (and even slower in the right); website designers who forget that some of us are visually impaired, have slow connections, or both—not to mention giving a flying ofrnication about computer security—but nonetheless force one to stop and download ActiveX controls, huge graphics, Javascript dancing bears, and the Ziegfield Follies just to find the bloody "Customer Service" link; and fascist newspaper editors who, on the one hand, constantly complain about the poor state of education in the liberal schools over in my half of town (primarily because the school board refused to ban Toni Morrison's books) but, on the other hand, allow consistently mispunctuated and misworded garbage to dominate the local news sections. What makes this last worse is that the News-Kazoo isn't event consistant in its inconsistancy: one story will be printed with no commas, while another will swap its for it's.

In honor of the recent holiday, I nominate each of these classes of morons as "giblet brains." That's at least something I can say around the kids; there's a limit to how much military vocabulary I should instill in my kids through the example of hearing their father blister the paint off a car at fifty paces. Besides, "giblet brains" is much clearer than "stupid &*)&^)*! ^#@%^*! %^*!er," and it's less likely to be taken as grounds for WWIII. I've met smarter amoeba than run the local governments (both cities, the school boards, and the county), so maybe even "giblet brains" is giving them too much credit.

I won't tear into the publishing industry—at least not today. As a matter of professional ethics, I'm not supposed to comment in public on the character or fitness of potential opponents or their counsel; as a matter of the ability to garner publishing contracts, I sure as hell shouldn't! Well, by implication, I think I just have… but it wuzsh an akshident, ahshiffer!

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