Didn’t see them, but I did see the web on a recent walk.
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Monthly Archives: October 2023
Along came a spider
Filed under Personal
Um, the United States military IS an equal opportunity employer, actually
But according to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, it isn’t. I presume this is in the sense of Equal Opportunity = Affirmative Action Hiring, because if it was really hiring the best, they’d all be Big Strong Men. Not women with lesbian parents. They want the ban on trans people serving back, and Tuberville objects to keeping white supremacists out of the armed services. I have a suspicion he’d agree with pundit Michael Knowles that “racist” is an inherently anti-white word.
Tuberville also freaks out about the military supposedly engaging in “abortion tourism,” meaning that if a pregnant soldier is stuck somewhere that doesn’t allow abortions, they’ll ship her out to get one. It’s becoming a popular term on the right, implying (as they like to do) that choosing not to become a parent is something shallow rather than a fundamental life choice. As Monica Hesse puts it at the last link “Are pregnant people crossing state lines to take in a Broadway show, finally eat at Momofuku and grab a relaxing abortion before ice skating at Rockefeller Center? Please.”
Speaking of abortion, Tennessee is a leader in punishing mothers for allegedly hurting the fetus but far from unique. And Alabama’s giving it stiff competition. Like other states, North Carolina is fine with abortion bans driving ob/gyns away.
No surprise: a chunk of the right-wing objects to women having the freedom “to refuse motherhood.” Which explains why they want to treat birth control as an abortifacent (it isn’t), thereby justifying a ban or, like abortion clinics, a way to nibble away at our rights. Condoms and the rhythm method aren’t abortifacents of course, but those also depend on the man cooperating.
While we’re discussing right-wing bullshit, here’s a couple of good posts from Roy Edroso and A.R. Moxon about Republicans whining liberals aren’t willing to be friends. And OMG, liberals won’t date Republicans. More from me here.
And one final piece: after Biden walked the UAW picket line, Trump pretended to address the union while speaking at a non-union plant. But at least the UAW called him on it.
That’s all the crap from the wretched hive of scum and villainy I can handle today.
Filed under Politics, Undead sexist cliches
Trial of a Time Lord: A most unusual S23
As I said in reviewing S22, Colin Baker grew on me after his dreadful debut, but not enough. Still, he did get a spectacular final season in Trial of a Time Lord, an epic story taking up the entire season, a la The Key to Time. In this case, though, tied even tighter together: all the episodes are simply titled “Trial of a Time Lord” where the previous season was broken up into several stories. Practically speaking, though, the series does break into several separate arcs and I shall treat it accordingly. Fair warning, this review includes spoilers.
In the opening of The Mysterious Planet the bemused Doctor finds himself on Gallifrey and on trial before a jury of Time Lords; the prosecutor, seen above, is the Valeyard (Michael Jayston). He accuses the Doctor of willfully meddling in the affairs of other worlds (a no-no for Time Lords, at least officially) and leaving them worse than he found them. To prove his point he shows the courtroom a recent adventure in which the Doctor and Peri land on a strange world that soon turns out to resemble a ruined Earth. The Doctor realizes it is Earth, somehow yanked millions of miles across the universe. There are barbarian tribes, an underground high-tech installation and conniving Glitz (Tony Selby), a rogue who senses profit in it all. But the serial wraps up leaving the Doctor with more questions than answers. “I believe the ancients used this device to watch the Canadian goose.”
Mindwarp reintroduces the Doctor and Peri to Sil, the conniving alien they met in the previous season’s Vengeance on Varos. His world’s leader needs a new body for a transplant; in the process of testing out the Doctor as a potential host, the treatment apparently turns the Doctor evil. Or is he shamming? Or, as he tells the court, has the Valeyard tampered with the supposedly infallible Matrix from which he’s drawing these images? It turns out the Doctor was abducted to the courtroom from late in the adventure, which also involves Brian Blessed as the rebel leader Yrcanos. To the Doctor’s horror it appears that after he left, Peri became the alien’s host (Bryant’s brief moment of playing evil is better than I expected) which the Valeyard says is all on him.
This one is kind of a mess, partly because creative conflicts backstage meant Baker never could learn whether he was faking being evil or what? And it’s remarkable now how much Sil’s people, the inhabitants of Thoros-Beta, come off like Ferengi. Overall this doesn’t quite work but Peri’s death — even if we’re not sure it’s real — is a shock. “This is a court of law, not a debating society for maladjusted sociopaths.”
Terror of the Vervoids is that old reliable Who-plotline, murder on an enclosed setting. In this case it turns out to involved mad scientist Honor Blackman’s efforts to create/raise (it’s unclear which it is) vervoids, plant-like creatures she sees as perfect docile laborers. The Vervoids, however, have their own ideas on this point; there are multiple other schemes going on and the ship’s commander has met the Doctor before — and isn’t a fan.
For much of the running time this reminds me of one of Tom Baker’s old stories such as Robots of Death. However as Blue Towel Productions says, the Doctor’s offering this story as a defense and it’s hard to see how “look, this person asked me for help” disproves that he’s meddled on other occasions. It’s also murky about whether the Doctor wipes out the Vervoids as a Krynoid-like threat to animal life or if that’s more Matrix manipulation. It appears he did do it — but even faced with the far more dangerous Krynoids, the Doctor didn’t see the need to wipe out every last one. 
What this story does do is introduce the Doctor’s next companion, Mel (Bonnie Langford), seen above on Colin Baker’s left. Mel’s already traveling with him when the story opens, driving him up the wall by insisting he eat healthier. I like Mel — she’s more comic relief than Peri but she’s more forceful which Baker badly needs. “I’m subject to whims, so I’m told.”
We wrap up with The Ultimate Foe, who turns out to be, as the Doctor told the court earlier, the Valeyard. The story opens with the Master crashing the party from inside the Matrix and revealing what’s been going on. The underground base on Earth was being used to steal Time Lord secrets so the Time Lords hurled it across space as a counter-measure. When the Doctor showed up on Earth it became necessary to cover up that they’d meddled way more than he ever does, hence the decision to put him on trial.
The Valeyard is an alt.Doctor, created by fusing together all of the Doctor’s dark sides from his first twelve regenerations. The Master considers a Doctor turned pure evil to be a deadly rival so he’s determined to put a stop to this; if he can shame the Time Lords in the process, so much better. Now the Doctor and the Valeyard go inside the Matrix to settle things once and for all …
It’s a spectacular finish though as Blue Towel notes it doesn’t make much sense. Why such a clumsy method of dealing with the snoopers on Earth? Why don’t the Time Lords in the court know any of this? If some other faction is responsible, shouldn’t we meet them and see them dealt with? There’s plenty of fun in the goings-on, especially when we get into the Matrix, but the story is a mess. As is Peri’s end: while I’m glad she’s not dead, marrying her off to Yrcanos makes as little sense as Leela’s ending in Invasion of Time.
In any case, Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor ends here; showrunner John Nathan-Turner tried luring him back for the regeneration sequence that opens the next season but Baker passed, annoyed it would be nothing but a brief cameo. “I knew this was a mistake — my grip on reality is weak at the best of times.”
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Covers for paperbacks set in the real world (nominally)
Love that cover copy — it could happen to you! — is always a good hook.
Mitchell Hooks offers one that presents itself as tackling topic real-world issues.
A great title for this 1952 novel. If you’re curious about two-fisted attorney Scott Jordan, click here. Art by Joe McGinnis.
Gerald Gregg provided this one.
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“Don’t say gay” is a golden opportunity for added bigotry.
According to Florida’s attorney general, Ron DeSantis’ Don’t Say Gay rules require schools keep sexuality-related (i.e. gay or trans) material out of school classrooms but not libraries. Nevertheless, Charlotte County’s school superintendent has ordered school libraries purge “all books with LGBTQ characters or themes.” Possibly this is pre-emptive compliance — do what you think the state wants before it even demands it — but it feels like bigots in the system are seizing an opportunity. As witness their flimsy rationale that as classroom activities sometimes happen in the library, therefore it’s a schoolroom, QED!
In related matters about schools, kids and conservatives:
“Board president Joan Cullen, who marched in the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol, has come under fire for controversial social media posts, including one calling a survivor of the deadly 2018 Parkland school shooting a “tyrant.”” — from a post about what happens when Moms for Liberty takes over a school board.
Just 11 people provide the majority of book-banning requests to school library.
“As school board members, your sworn duty and responsibility is to enforce the Parents’ Bill of Rights law to protect our young grandkids from sexual harassment, from homosex groomers lurking in our schools, unions, PTAs, libraries and moms for porn groups,” Duane Hansen said at last week’s Wake school board meeting. I’ve no idea who Hansen is but this sounds more like bigoted fantasies that let Mr. Hansen imagine he’s a virtuous man. I bet he’d be outraged if I suggested doing something about Christian ministers grooming kids or that given the scope of the Presybterian abuse crisis we should keep girls away from the church. Or there’s the Baptist worship leader who’s been busted for producing child porn.
But let’s be fair, plenty of right-wing pastors have other issues — like complaining autistic children are demon-possessed.
Let’s not forget, some of the religious right are openly in favor of indoctrinating (other people’s) children.
Brooklyn Library’s drag-story hour gets a bomb threat. The threateners may have deluded themselves that they’re the good guys too.
A school insists that suspending a black kid for his hairstyle isn’t discrimination.
A teacher in South Carolina taught a class around Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book on race. She was willing to talk to students who complained; she didn’t expect they’d report her.
Another teacher, another burst of outrage.
Sen. Joe Manchin opposes expanding the child tax credit because, he says, parents will just buy drugs with the money.
Filed under Politics
Assassins kill! Nineteenth century women unite! Books read
CORPORATE GUNSLINGER by Doug Engstrom is set in a dystopian future where debt to corporate America gets you de facto enslaved and where citizens who can’t get justice when corporations screw them over have one last recourse: dueling with a trained gunman to decide the outcome of their case. Kira, the protagonist, is up to her eyeballs in debt but turning herself into Death’s Angel, an icy corporate assassin lets her keep her head above water. But becoming a professional killer takes a toll she may not be able to pay … This is much more entertaining painting a brutal, corporate-dominated future than Vigilance but it doesn’t stick the landing: it reads like Engstrom suddenly realized he’d been asking us to sympathize and side with someone making unethical choices and he got cold feet about it.
CROWDED, by Christopher Sibela and Ro Stein, is set in a world where someone whipped up an app for crowdsourcing assassinations, a way to take out particularly bad politicians. Only inevitably it’s broadened beyond that, as Charlie Ellison discovers when someone uses the app to target her for death. Charlie hires Vita off a bodyguarding app but can they survive the swarm of wannabe shooters? And who put out the hit on Charlie? This was a lot of fun.
For some reason 19th century women in fiction seem to be forming lots of secret societies. I read The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels a while back, I saw an add for another recently and here are a couple more, though neither clicked with me as much as Wisteria Society.
In AN EARL, THE GIRL , AND A TODDLER: Rogues and Remarkable Women Book 2 by Vanessa Riley the society is The Widow’s Grace, a group of women who do things like rescue wives consigned by their husbands to madhouses (a common ploy to get an inconvenient woman out of the way). One of the leads is a Jamaican amnesiac member of the society, the other a black aristocrat and barrister, who together break the society’s rules on getting involved. I like the concept and I like having POC as the leads but this relied too much on having read Book One: I felt, reading it, as if a couple of key chapters of exposition had been cut out. I didn’t finish. I’m used to feeling lost when I pick up a mid-series book but this was worse than usual.
While I also didn’t finish A PERFECT EQUATION: The Secret Scientists of London Book 2 by Elizabeth Everett, the story of a secret cabal of female scientists fighting against efforts to shut them down didn’t leave me confused, it just didn’t work for me. For both books keep in mind romance isn’t my go-to genre so YMMV.
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