If Moviepilot‘s reporting is correct, among other things students won’t really have to worry about the 2015-16 school year:
It seems not a year can go by without someone out there claiming it will be our last. Whether it’s the rapture, nuclear war or general garden-variety extinction, some conspiracy and biblical theorists just love to get everyone else slightly perturbed at the threat of our destruction. I say ‘slightly perturbed’ because let’s face it, it’s not the first time we’ve heard this.
This time, the various blogs are claiming the world will end at some point between September 22-28th, 2015. For the most part, the actual reasoning behind our inevitable doom is a bit confused, but the main line of thought states an asteroid will collide within the year, which will then usher in an oppressive world government controlled by the New World Order. What’s Apparently Going To Happen?
Well, according to a theory known as the Blood Moon Prophecy, September 2015 is important because it marks the end of a lunar tetrad – a sequence of four successive blood moons – that began in April 2014.
According to some biblical theorists, these blood moons – each of which coincided with a Jewish holiday – mark the end times described in the Bible in Acts 2:20 and Revelation 6:12. Some, such as Youtuber Lewey7777, seem to suggest this wrath of God will be manifested as an asteroid which will collide with the Earth during the period of the final blood moon. One blog, titled 888whistleblower.com claimed:
“Most likely we are for real talking about is the end of all life on this planet. The efforts to stop the process, which could very well be an inevitability, aren’t working. The methods they are using are right in the skies above your head, and they are still top secret.
Most likely they are making the end come sooner, and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do except wake up to what is going on, and wake our friends and family up, at the risk of looking like a fool. One thing I think I can assure you though, is that the end is coming, and I don’t think it is that far away.”
Other conspiracy websites such as BeforeItsNews.com, have suggested other events which occur during September 22-28th also point unflinchingly towards annihilation. These include:
The Pope, who is apparently the anti-Christ, talking to the UN on September 23rd about the Post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda – or the “New World Order plan.”
CERN intends to conduct experiments with the most powerful cycle of the Large Hadron Collider yet.
Large scale military exercises – most notable Jade Helm.
The apparent stockpiling of food, weapons and ammunition in underground bunkers.
Video games, films and television shows pointing to the apocalypse. They state: “Titles include Tomorrowland, Mission Impossible, Call of Duty Black Ops III, Mad Max. All are being used to condition using subliminal messages for the coming and acceptance from the masses of events that will unfold very soon.”
“NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small. In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
Also, as I suggested above, this is not the first time we’ve heard this. Let’s just remind ourselves of some of the most recent apocalyptic portendings:
1,000 AD: A rise in Christian activity was prompted by fears the millennium would usher in the end of the world. People left their jobs and homes only to be disappointed when the year changed and no Horsemen of the Apocalypse had arrived. The original predictors claimed it was because they miscalculated Jesus’ age and that the world would really end in 1033. We all know how that turned out.
February 1524: Astrologers in London noticed a strange alignment of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. This led some to claim a giant biblical flood was imminent. Some sought shelter on high ground only to return home completely dry and a bit embarrassed.
Fall 1982: In 1980, popular television evangelist Pat Robinson told viewers of The 700 Club: “I guarantee you, by the end 1982 there is going to be judgment on the world.” It didn’t happen.
2000: The second millennium also came with apocalypse fears, although this one was about computers. The so-called millennium bug would supposedly fry computers all around the world – plunging us into a new dark age.
May 21st, 2011: US pastor Harold Camping claimed rapture would arrive in 2011, after initially getting the date wrong in 1994. His claims were widely reported, and some of his followers even sold their belongings.
December 21, 2012: The much vaunted end of the Mayan calendar was similarly linked to the end of the world. News flash: It didn’t happen.
Of course, perhaps it is true, and I’m just a member of that insidious New World Order/Illuminati/Zionist/Globalist conspiracy? I guess we’ll have to wait until September to find out.
I don’t recall Robertson’s claim of impending judgment. I do recall Y2K (I remember radio talk show host Art Bell reporting on power outages in Quebec in the middle of the night on New Year’s Day 2000), and this blog covered Camping and the Mayans. Before Robertson, there was also a prediction of doom stemming from the planets’ all being aligned, covered by none other than Leonard Nimoy in his “In Search Of” series.
Of course, denying the conspiracy proves you’re part of it.
As long as we’re on a self-indulgence thing (which seems obvious for the Selfie Era), for those who care, here is a Half Century of Steve:
Others born the day I was born: Bodybuilder Suzan Kaminga (who undoubtedly could clean my clock), singer and bass player Mike Gordon of Phish, and actor Jeff Blumenkrantz.
Inherited physical traits: Height, nearsightedness, bad back (though it’s remarkable how much better your back feels after you lose 50 pounds), bad sinuses.
Celebrities someone claimed I look like: Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum (not sure how that happened), Brett Favre (by a guy who may have been inebriated at 7:30 a.m.).
Little known fact about me until you read this blog (other than the spacewalk thing): I am the son of a 1960 Miss Wisconsin-USA pageant contestant and the first piano player of southern Wisconsin’s first rock and roll band. Really.
Strange thing said about me: I don’t sound like I’m from Wisconsin. (Two native Illinoisians said that.)
Favorite car I ever owned: My handed-down-from-my-parents 1975 Chevy Caprice coupe. 18 feet long, 4,300 pounds, 11 city mpg, 26-gallon gas tank. Seated as many people as you wanted. Cavernous trunk. It was like owning an El Camino with a back seat.
Favorite car I have yet to own: The Corvette. Duh. Which? I could live with a 1965 or later C2, or a C3, or a C5. Or, let’s face it, probably any Corvette that showed up in my driveway, as long as it is not equipped with an automatic. To be different, I like the dark green Vettes:
Non-Corvette you want: A big station wagon from the ’70s or ’80s, or a four-wheel-drive pickup truck. (Again, with a stick.)
Musical instruments you’ve played (if that’s what you want to call it): Trumpet. Piano, though I hated it.
Favorite musical moment: Marching in the University of Wisconsin Marching Band. Also, playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” on All Saints Day at our former church.
Favorite rock group: Chicago. Duh. (But not the sappy ballads.)
Favorite rock act not named Chicago: Electric Light Orchestra. Or Santana.
Favorite rock solo act: Eric Clapton.
Favorite old country song: Marty Robbins “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation.”
Favorite current country song: Joe Nichols “Sunny and 75.”
Favorite classical music: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, or something I played in high school (Gustav Holst’s suites in E-flat and F, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Folk Song Suite.”)
Favorite movie you can’t watch with the kids: Either “Fargo” or “Desperado.” You betcha.
Favorite TV show: “Star Trek.”
Favorite fictional character: Capt. James T. Kirk.
Favorite conservative writer: Jonah Goldberg, because his couch talks to him.
Favorite book of the Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, in which the apostles go from “Great, now what?” to “Hey, this works!”
Favorite food group: Italian, possibly ironically since I am 0 percent Italian.
Favorite meal: Brunch.
Favorite breakfast: Pancakes and bacon. Or country fried steak and eggs.
Favorite lunch: Bacon cheeseburger, with lettuce, tomato and raw onion. (And probably a bib.)
Favorite dinner: Ribeye steak and shrimp, with a baked potato cooked until it’s molten.
Favorite vegetables (yes, I do eat them): Corn on the cob, tomatoes, fresh spinach, asparagus, and red, orange and yellow peppers.
Favorite fruit: Watermelon and fresh pineapple.
Favorite dessert: Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
Favorite mixed drink: Brandy old fashioned with sweet vermouth.
Favorite summer mixed drink: Tanqueray gin and tonic.
Favorite beer: In the summer, Potosi Steamboat Shandy. Other times of the year: Leinenkugel Red or Capital Brewery Supper Club.
Favorite discontinued beer: Heileman’s Special Export.
Favorite cold nonalcoholic beverage: Sweet tea.
Favorite hot nonalcoholic beverage: Coffee.
Favorite Wisconsin-made ag product: Milk.
Favorite exercise activity: Walking.
Only exercise activity: Walking.
Greatest athletic moment: Outside of the Heritage Bowl (high school friends of mine know the reference), it would be the night I hit a triple playing softball. I left part of my leg at third base, but the girl who came to watch apparently was impressed, since she is now the mother of our children.
Favorite pet: Our Welsh springer spaniel, Puzzle, although she had amazing ability to inflict pain on her supposed owner. (Apparently our maximum-size Basenji, or PitBasenHerd, is channeling Puzzle from this side of the Rainbow Bridge.)
Thing I miss: Our late Siamese cat, Mocha, jumping onto my lap while I’m trying to type on my laptop.
Favorite sports team: The Green Bay Packers, of which I am an owner.
Favorite sports team that doesn’t exist anymore: The Chicago Cubs of the day baseball era when Harry Caray was their announcer. Now, the Cubs have slightly more charm than the White Sox, which isn’t saying much.
Favorite sports quote 1A: Vince Lombardi: “Winning is not a sometime thing, it’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do things write all the time.”
Favorite sports quote 1B: Also Vince Lombardi: “If you chase perfection, you will catch excellence.”
Favorite expression: Irony tinged with sarcasm. (Because I’m from the ’80s. As if you didn’t notice.)
Things I wear that aren’t necessarily in style: Dress shirts with blue jeans. Also white shoes in the summertime.
PC or Mac? Mac … when they work correctly.
Most prominent person who got angry with me: Probably Madison Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino. Followed by Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, on three occasions when he wasn’t the mayor.
Favorite president: Well … Ronald Reagan.
Least favorite politician: Too many to list, but nearly all of them have the letter D after their name.
Thing that ticks me off: Misspellings in big type in print.
Thing I hate: Wisconsin winters.
Least desirable personal trait: Impatience, because there is only one truly, provably nonrenewable resource — time.
Favorite swear word (a question asked on AMC’s “Inside the Actors Studio,” though the answer is always bleeped out): Well, it starts with F, and rhymes with “puck,” because of its linguistic utility. (However, try to avoid swearing. We’re not going to put up with that shit.)
Favorite time of day: Not the morning. I prefer to get up at 9 a.m. or later. (See “coffee.”)
Favorite geographic trivia fact: From the Platteville Mound, you can look down on Charles Mound, the highest point in the state of Illinois.
Favorite professional trivia fact: Cuba City was named by postmaster William Goldthorpe (because its previous name was “Yuba City,” and there was already a Yuba elsewhere in Wisconsin and a Yuba City in California), who also owned the Tri-County Press, where I used to work.
Writer(s) after whom I patterned my style: Consciously? No one.
Professional thing I haven’t done yet: Write a series of novels that sell millions of copies each. Also write something in Episcopal Church Rite I language. (Is it meet, right and my bounden duty so to do?)
Biggest job I didn’t get: Announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers. I applied twice. They hired someone else twice.
Career-specific professional advice: Don’t get hung up in how information is delivered. Learn to present information in words, graphics, sound and video.
Non-career-specific professional advice: Be the best at what you do whether or not you get credit for it.
Personal advice: Make the most of where you are now, because your life is what is happening while you’re waiting for your idealized life to begin. Also, speak out.
NBC, CBS and FOX have all tried — and failed — to loosen ESPN’s chokehold on cable sports because they have all been unable to grasp one very simple rule:
You can’t out-ESPN ESPN. …
The fact that CBS Sports Network isn’t even recorded by Nielsen speaks for itself, but meanwhile, ESPN averaged over 7 times the viewers as its nearest competitor during both day time and prime time broadcasts.
How is this possible, you ask? The answer is actually quite simple: None of the new sports networks have learned from the mistakes of its predecessors.
CBS Sports Network has toiled in obscurity for a decade since CBS acquired College Sports TV for $325 million in 2005 — where I was working at the time. First, it failed to compete with ESPN’s college sports’ coverage as CBS College Sports Network. And then it failed again after pivoting in 2011 to become a general sports network rebranded as CBS Sports Network.
A microcosm of the channel’s failure, CBS Sports Net’s one major splash to improve ratings, hiring Jim Rome in 2012, went down in flames with his daily show lasting less than two years.
NBC was next up to bat by morphing Versus into the NBC Sports Network in 2012, and hiring Michelle Beadle away from ESPN to be the face of the network with their version of “SportsNation” called “The Crossover.”
Beadle later described her former co-host Dave Briggs as a “talentless hack” and the entire NBC Sports Network experience as “a hot mess,” which gives you a pretty good idea of how that experiment went.
Then came along FOX Sports 1, which was launched two summers ago, billed as a real challenger to ESPN’s throne with Rupert Murdoch’s money and power behind the project.
The network made big-time hires in Gus Johnson and Erin Andrews, launched its own versions of “SportsNation” (“Crowd Goes Wild”) and “SportsCenter” (“FOX Sports Live”), was part of a $3 billion rights deal with the Pac-12 that it shares with ESPN, and gobbled up the rights to Big East basketball.
Yet almost every move FS1 has made has failed miserably.
Andrews was moved from college football to the NFL after one year of FOX’s disastrous college football pre-game show. Crowd Goes Wild was quickly cancelled, FOX Sports Live is dwarfed by SportsCenter, and FOX’s college sports coverage gets crushed by ESPN. …
CBS Sports Network is currently on a ventilator somewhere, while NBC Sports Network seems content having the rights to the NHL and English Premier League soccer. FS1 continues to double down on its investment, as evidenced by the recent hiring of former “First Take” producer and “Embrace Debate” artist Jamie Horowitz.
But moves like that suggest FS1 remains blind to repeating its mistakes all over again, trying to replicate ESPN’s success by bringing in former Bristol employees, and copying The Worldwide Leader’s shows.
That’s a fool’s errand.
If FOX were to hire Skip Bayless (his contract is up soon, by the way), ESPN would just replace him with another stooge to stir shit up while FOX’s knockoff goes and draws a fraction of the Mothership’s audience.
The lesson, at this point, should be clear: Instead of trying to out-ESPN ESPN, sports networks need to be the anti-ESPN.
The irony of FOX Sports 1 not understanding this rule is that it’s the same credo Murdoch used to make FOX News so successful.
Nobody thought there was space for another news channel when FOX News launched in 1996 with CNN already firmly established and MSNBC having recently launched. But FOX News’ Roger Ailes had the ingenious idea of cornering an untapped market: Conservatives who hate the “liberal media.” While FOX News is universally panned by industry insiders, it’s the 800-pound cable news gorilla that routinely trounces its primary competition.
If I were in charge of FOX Sports 1, my motto would be: FS1 is going to be the sports blog of cable sports networks — funny as hell and totally unfiltered. I’d start by canceling “FOX Sports Live” and replacing it with a sports version of “The Man Show” that mixed in sports with on-air drinking, comedic skits and girls jumping on trampolines.
Would it be shameless? Yes. But so is all of FOX News, and it’d also be ten times better than watching a poor man’s “SportsCenter.” Just imagine a sports version of “The Man Show” that, say, paired original co-host Adam Carolla with Bill Simmons and a daily segment narrated by Simmons called, “Why ESPN Sucks.”
The second thing I’d do is get former “Crowd Goes Wild” host Katie Nolan on the air as much as possible instead of just YouTube clips and a weekly show that airs on Sunday nights (the name, “Garbage Time,” is certainly fitting if nothing else). She’s the only creative and original thing FS1 thing has done to date.
Nolan isn’t alone when it comes to potentially available talent, either. For example, Spencer Hall of SB Nation and Drew Magary of Deadspin are Internet stars with huge, loyal followings that would tune in to watch them whenever they are on TV. They’re also widely respected within the blogosphere, making them polar opposites of Skip Bayless.
I’d also build out FS1’s daytime programming with stark alternatives to ESPN’s debate shows. How about a parody of First Take called Last Take? Instead of debating mindless things like, “Could a 52-year old Michael Jordan beat LeBron James?”, Hall and Magary could mockingly argue over the question, “Could the cadaver of Babe Ruth hit a home run off Clayton Kershaw?” with Nolan as the moderator.
These suggestions may fly in the face of conventional television programming wisdom, but pretty much every single executive instinct of the suits at CBS, NBC, and FOX has been wrong.
So perhaps Jerry Seinfeld had it right. “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”
You can agree with his point about trying to out-ESPN ESPN without agreeing to his approach on how to do that, or whether his solution even matches his definition of the problem. What would be the purpose of an ESPN parody show? Bayless and Stephen A. Smith are self-parodies as it is. (Bayless and Smith have their own talk show on every TV in Hell, broadcast 24/7.)
I am probably no one’s target demographic anymore, but I am interested in watching sports to watch sports. And only watch sports. You know, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat; the human drama of athletic competition? That is what’s worth watching. Not the pregame show, not the postgame show, and certainly not hours of uninformed “takes” for the sole purpose of participant self-promotion.
Former Cubs manager Lee Elia’s spectacular rant about Cubs fans (back in the days of only day baseball at Wrigley Field) comes to mind when you wonder who watches ESPN’s aforementioned seven sports yak shows. I would rather watch golf (which I don’t watch) than Bayless or Smith. The first word in ESPN’s name is, yes, “Entertainment,” but ESPN’s sports talk qualifies only in the same way car crash scenes qualify as entertainment.
It’s probably not a surprise that I was more of a fan and viewer of ESPN in its early days when it had more air time to fill than programming and would therefore fill air time with repeats of games (which would actually be convenient for those who don’t work the usual 8-to-5 schedule) or weird sports like Australian Rules Football. I also enjoyed watching ESPN Classic, even though (or perhaps because) what it showed was usually before the era of 16:9 HD and stereo broadcasts with constant score-and-time on the screen.
But as I said, I’m probably in no one’s target demographic anymore. Certainly not ESPN’s.
Readers know about my enthusiasm for “Star Trek,” a franchise approaching 50 years old.
Around the same time “Star Trek” hit the airwaves, far to the east, German TV had its own science fiction series, “Raumpatrouille — Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion.”
Commander McLane and the crew of the fast space cruiser Orion patrol Earth’s outposts and colonies in space and defend humanity from the alien ‘Frogs’.
To call this Germany’s — actually, West Germany’s, with assistance from France — Star Trek isn’t fair to Gene Roddenberry’s creation, though there are parallels. Roddenberry envisioned a united world with a United Federation of Planets consisting of many planets with theoretically united populations as well. By Star Trek, humanoidkind had learned to live together more or less in peace, though that didn’t apply to the Romulans, Klingons or other hostile races the Enterprise encountered.
Raumpatrouille’s Earth is united, too, but there are no alien races except the enemy “Frogs” introduced in episode 1. It’s not clear what kind of Earth government there is, though apparently the producers had concerns that viewers would see it as a bit fascist. Space travel appears to be the province of the military, with the “Secret Service,” military intelligence, kind of looming around the edges.
Interestingly, the hero, Maj. Cliff Allistair McLane, is American. (Though he speaks perfect German. I guess American Star Trek viewers wouldn’t expect Sulu to speak Japanese, Uhura to speak Swahili, or Chekov to speak Russian, not to mention Spock’s Vulcan language.) It would seem in the 1960s outside the U.S., if you wanted to portray a rules-flouting authority-defying rebel who dares do what would give those above him the vapors, you make him an American. There are certainly parallels to Capt. James T. Kirk, though Kirk’s rule-breaking is more situational — Kirk breaks rules when it’s the right thing to do — whereas McLane’s seems to be congenital, going out of his way (literally in the beginning of the first episode) to break rules. Both Kirk and McLane seem to have luck with the ladies (hey, it was the swinging ’60s).
In the first episode, McLane and the Orion 7 (McLane apparently has had seven Orion ships, because the first six were destroyed in the course of a mission) are banished from combat to the boring duty of space patrol after another McLane insubordination episode. Worse, McLane is assigned a Secret Service officer, Lt. Tamara Jagellovsk, to act as security officer and keep McLane under control.
The rest of the cast was said to be “international,” but, well, they’re all played by German actors — Lts. Mario de Monti (the armament officer and apparently the computer expert), Atan Shubashi (the “astrogator,” which apparently combines helmsman and navigator), Hasso Sigbjornson (the engineer — think of a Scandinavian Mr. Scott) and Helga Legrelle (the communications/surveillance officer). And that’s the entire cast on board the Orion. (Which makes you think they never have overnight missions, or the six-man crew needs no sleep.)
One area where Raumpatrouille deviates far from Star Trek is the significant amount of attention paid to Space Command on Earth — McLane’s boss, Gen. Winston Wamsler; McLane’s former commander, Gen. Lydia Van Dyke; and particularly Col. Hendryk Villa, Jagellovsk’s creepy boss. There is a great deal of intrigue between Wamsler and his superiors and Villa.
An apparently huge fan of the series wrote:
Unlike the disciplined heroes of contemporary American fare such as STAR TREK or VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, the crew of the Orion were incorrigible mavericks. In the very first episode the Orion is demoted from active service in the space fleet and relegated to space patrol, the equivalent of galactic traffic cops, for their latest act of disobedience. The Orion’s skipper is Major Cliff Alistair McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) a war hero, a man of unquestionable ingenuity, courage and fierce sense of loyalty, yet he is dangerously reckless with little respect for authority and an utter contempt for bureaucracy. His crew would willingly follow him into hell, knowing that if any man could get them back out it would be McLane.
Despite McLane’s habitual insubordination, his value is recognized by both his former superior, General Van Dyke (Charlotte Kerr) and General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) the commander of Terrestrial Space Reconnaissance. It is Wamsler who arranges for the Orion to be reassigned to the Space Patrol, rather than have them face court- martial. However as a condition of this, he also assigns them a new crew member, Lieutenant Tamara Jagelovsk, a GSD (Security Services) agent to keep them in line. Initially at odds with his new watchdog, McLane discovers that Jagelovsk, with her cool efficiency and by-the-book nature, is not the millstone he expected and the two quickly develop a considerably less antagonistic relationship. …
It is shortly after their reassignment to the Space Patrol that the crew of the Orion discover a new and unprecedented threat to humanity, on Earth and in space – a race of technologically advanced energy creatures, nicknamed the Frogs, bent on the destruction of mankind. The Frogs and their machinations would serve as the main threat for the duration of the series’ run. Other episodes featured such familiar SF concepts as rebellious robots, deranged scientists and lost Earth colonies.
Technically SPACE PATROL was far superior to anything seen on American television, and, for that matter, in most contemporary theatrical films. The show abounded with complex matte shots, miniature work and optical effects, ranging from floating robots to the semi-invisible Frogs, to a giant super nova hurtling through space, to an entire planet ripping apart before the viewer’s very eyes. Every opportunity was taken to make the show look more impressive. The Orion didn’t simply launch from a pad, it rose from a gigantic hanger on the ocean floor, up through the aquatic depths, then emerged from a spinning whirlpool to lift into the sky. Even what could have been conventional sets were enhanced with complicated optical shots, such as the lounge in the frequently visited Starlight Casino which featured a transparent ceiling allowing patrons to watch giant fish swimming past as the relaxed.
Only seven episodes of SPACE PATROL ORION were produced, broadcast biweekly from September 17 through to December 10th, 1966. Unlike STAR TREK, which suffered from general viewer apathy, SPACE PATROL ORION was immensely popular during its initial run. Unfortunately in Germany the concept of audience size at that time meant very little. In 1966 there were only two television channels, WDR and ZDF; both non-commercial, government run public television services. And so, after the end of its first, all too brief run, the complex and very costly RAUMPATROUILLE ORION passed into television history.
That is all a bit of revisionist history if you believe the always-accurate Wikipedia, which claims:
“We had no money available and yet we were instructed to produce an elaborate science-fiction series. We were forced to improvise in all aspects. This ruled out completely manufacturing the spaceship’s equipment from scratch. So we used existing things that we could adapt,” is how Zehetbauer described the design work of the set.
Rumours about the considerable costs of the series having led to its termination after only seven episodes were denied by the widow of the Orion’s original screen writer, implying that it was planned from the start to have only seven installments. More episode screenplays were written than were filmed. No official reason was given for not producing a second series of episodes, but there are several reasons that were aired in interviews many years later by those involved in the production. According to Hans Gottschalk, one of the executive producers, there was a “lack of exciting script ideas” at the time. Helmut Jedele, then boss of Bavaria Film, the production company, mentioned in hindsight that the company had already undertaken too much for its resources, both in terms of staff and finance.
Another factor in planning for a second series would have been filming in colour instead of black-and-white. While this would have been required for a successful international marketing of an extension, the German production companies were not yet prepared for the necessary investment for the new equipment.
One good feature is the music, written by German composer Peter Thomas in kind of a ’60s electronic style:
It may be unfair to compare this to “Star Trek,” because to be honest “Star Trek” was considerably more thought out by Roddenberry. Recall that Roddenberry’s vision was “‘Wagon Train’ to the stars,” where the Enterprise explored space, sometimes but not every week fighting the bad, uh, beings in space. The genius of Roddenberry’s concept was that it could encompass nearly every kind of story — adventure, drama, comedy, social themes you couldn’t explore in a contemporary setting, and, well, whatever “Spock’s Brain” was.
There is a little of that, but not much, in “Space Patrol.” Most episodes focus on the Frogs, though there is one that sort of combines three “Star Trek” episodes, “Devil in the Dark” (miners) and “The Changeling” or “The Ultimate Computer” (robots gone amok).
Another episode borrows from the “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” movie, not setting the Van Allen belts on fire, but portraying an alien species playing around with our sun. Then it veers into “Spock’s Brain” or an adolescent male fantasy by having the species’ planet run by attractive women.
The last episode, “Invasion,” may have inspired the best episode of the subpar first season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Conspiracy,” when the Frogs control Col. Villa’s mind and Villa leads the Frogs’ invasion of Earth.
It turns out that assigning McLane to boring space patrol saves the day in each of the seven episodes. It would spoil the fun to point out that rebels rarely reach the command rank in the real world. (Although it makes one think again that there is an opportunity for a new Star Trek franchise centered around a captain who doesn’t think the Federation and Starfleet is the be-all and end-all of existence, someone voted Most Likely to Become a Pirate in his Starfleet class, someone whose credo is that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than seek permission. For that matter, such a character could lead a new Star Wars franchise — an Empire commander who switches sides because of the Force or his realization of the evil of the Empire.)
I will be on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Joy Cardin Week in Review program Friday at 7 a.m.
My foil will be Louis Fortis, publisher of Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express. He is probably my favorite Cardin opposite because as a journalist he seems more skeptical and cynical about politics, as opposed to some others on the other side, who think everything Democrats and liberals say is pure wisdom and every Republican and conservative is pure pond scum.
Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network can be heard on WHA (970 AM) in Madison, WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill., WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, and of course online at www.wpr.org.
(The family joke is that I’m on WPR around weekend holidays, which means I should be on next week, but I’m not in charge of when, or if, I appear on WPR, or with whom.)
“Free speech aside, why would anyone do something as provocative as hosting a ‘Muhammad drawing contest’?” asked Rukmini Callimachi, a New York Times reporter who specializes in Islamic extremism, on Twitter last night. That prompted a fair amount of criticism and mockery, but we’d like to attempt a serious answer to the question.
Callimachi was responding to last night’s events in Garland, a Dallas suburb, summed up by The Wall Street Journal:
Two men were killed Sunday in a Dallas suburb after they opened fire outside a building where an exhibit that featured cartoon drawings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was being held, city officials said.
The men drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, where the American Freedom Defense Initiative was hosting an event with an award of $10,000 for the top Muhammad cartoon, and began shooting at an unarmed security officer, according to a Garland city spokeswoman.
Garland police who were helping with event security returned fire, shooting and killing the two gunmen, who weren’t immediately identified.
The victim, Bruce Joiner, is out of the hospital after treatment for an ankle wound. The New York Times reports that police identified one of the dead suspects as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, where the FBI searched “an apartment believed to be connected to him.” In 2010 federal prosecutors charged a man by that name with “plotting to travel to Somalia ‘for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,’ and then lying to a federal agent.” A judge convicted him of the latter charge “but said the government had not proved that his plan involved terrorism.”
The Times adds that “officials did not give a motive for the attack,” which is no doubt wise of them: The job of police investigators is to gather facts first and explain theories later. In this case, however, one hypothesis seems far likelier than any others. As the Times notes, “drawings of Muhammad, considered offensive by many Muslims, have drawn violent responses in the past.” The most shocking was January’s Charlie Hebdo massacre, but also in February, as CNN reported, a gunman who “swore fidelity to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” opened fire on a free-speech forum in Copenhagen, and then outside a synagogue, claiming two lives before Danish police killed him.
Even without official word on Simpson and his yet-unnamed accomplice’s motive, one can say that the attack was functionally an act of jihad. Anjem Choudary — the London-based extremist imam who defended the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in a next-day USA Today op-ed — tweeted this morning: “#garlandshooting we must learn the lessons from [Salman] Rushdie, [Ayaan] Hirsi Ali, Theo Van Gogh & Chalie [sic] Hebdo not to insult the Messenger Muhammad (saw)!” He elaborated in another tweet: “#garlandshooting there are two camps in the world: those that believe sovereignty belongs to mankind & those who believe it belongs to Allah.” (“Saw” is an abbreviation for the Arabic phrase meaning “peace be upon him.”)
So what about Rukmini Callimachi’s question? Let’s first dispense with the “Free speech aside …” preface, which some on Twitter found especially neuralgic: “The #NYT should change its slogan to ‘Free Speech Aside,’” snarked Gavin McInnes. It was certainly an unfortunate choice of words, but sometimes Twitter encourages brevity at the expense of clarity. We’d suggest a charitable interpretation. Perhaps Callimachi didn’t mean to disparage free speech but to concede it. That is, perhaps by “Free speech aside …,” she meant something like “Stipulating that the event was an exercise in constitutionally protected free speech …”
Proceeding on that assumption, the answer seems obvious. The purpose of the event was to make a point, in part a point about free speech. The event’s message was something like this: This is America, where the right of free speech is nearly absolute and includes the right to say things others find offensive or otherwise provocative.
Of course the event provoked not just indignation or anger but violence, a consequence whose possibility the authorities evidently anticipated — hence the strong police presence — and that was reasonable to anticipate given the European events described above. If we assume the organizers were cognizant of the possibility as well, then the event is best understood as an exercise in nonviolent resistance.
In a Salon apologia for the Baltimore riots, political philosopher Musa al-Gharbi observes that Martin Luther King “often staged episodes of civil disobedience in the most hostile or dangerous areas, with the implicit intent of generating a heavy-handed response from the authorities or local community in a highly public and well-publicized setting — thereby advancing sympathy for, and awareness of, the cause. Pacifists gain moral high ground precisely by refusing to return violence in kind — a feat that is impossible unless and until they are confronted with unreasonable force.”
It would be inaccurate to describe the Garland event as civil disobedience, since the organizers’ adversaries were not the civil authorities. (Indeed, the Garland police appear to have acted exemplarily in employing deadly force to protect citizens from violence.) But if Choudary’s understanding of the attack is correct, Simpson and his accomplice were acting on behalf of what they saw as a higher authority — the laws of Shariah, ordained by God. That such authority has no formal standing in the U.S. does not make it either benign or unworthy of resistance.
Five years ago this column criticized “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day,” a similar effort that grew out of a whimsical cartoon, because it struck us as a gratuitous effort to offend. A few months later the cartoonist, Molly Norris, was reported to have gone into hiding in the face of death threats. In 2008, we interviewed Dutch politician Geert Wilders and argued that some of his anti-Islam rhetoric was overwrought and wrongheaded:
He insists that his antagonism toward Islam reflects no antipathy toward Muslims: “I make a distinction between the ideology . . . and the people. . . . There are people who call themselves Muslims and don’t subscribe to the full part of the Quran. And those people, of course, we should invest [in], we should talk to.” He says he would end Muslim immigration to the Netherlands but work to assimilate those already there.
His idea of how to do so, however, seems unlikely to win many converts: “You have to give up this stupid, fascist book”—the Quran. “This is what you have to do. You have to give up that book.”
Mr. Wilders is right to call for a vigilant defense of liberal principles. A society has a right, indeed a duty, to require that religious minorities comply with secular rules of civilized behavior. But to demand that they renounce their religious identity and holy books is itself an affront to liberal principles.
Wilders was among the organizers of last night’s event in Garland. As far as we know, he has not softened his problematic views. But he’s still right to call for a vigilant defense of liberal principles. Sometimes that justifies being provocative. Sometimes it even requires it.
1) First is the value of parenting. Mother of the year goes to the woman who slapped her teenage son silly for throwing rocks at the police. If Barack Obama wants to send a clear message of social responsibility, he should invite the lady to the White House and give her a medal of some sort. Bring the boy along. The young man has a real chance to grow up and be something. Or, at least, to grow up.
“He’s my only son. At the end of the day, I won’t want him to be another Freddie Gray,” she said, in reference to the 25-year-old killed in police custody. (CNN’s video here.) Think about that. Obey the law as a survival strategy.
2) The second lesson stems from the first. The raw fuel for disorders in Baltimore, as in Madison, comes down to teenage boys. The troubles started in Baltimore after the high schools let out Monday. Most of the victims –– whether in Baltimore, Madison, or Ferguson –– have been troubled young males. Boys looking to be men challenge authority –– the father figure. That is part of the initiation rite, no matter the species. The purpose of the adult is to keep order. Didn’t we read about a world ruled by teenaged boys in Lord of the Flies?
A while back, gamekeepers noted young bull elephants were wantonly killing rhinos. They captured and introduced into the rogue band a couple mature elephants from another herd. The rhino killing ceased. In this most violent year of race relations since LBJ, police substitute for the father figures –– the upholders of order –– for so many fatherless young men.
In Madison, the April 13 daylong shutdown of East Washington Avenue was in large part the work of truant high schoolers.
3) The third lesson is to not abdicate that authority just because it is challenged in the name of some bogus altruism. You protest the death of Freddie Gray by burning down a drug store and senior citizen housing? Stealing the Stoly?
The president is correct to call the riots the work of “criminals and thugs.” Baltimore’s mayor said the same, but some of her words were (perhaps understandably) misinterpreted. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she worked with the police, “to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech. It’s a very delicate balancing act, because, while we tried to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.”
At first blush, it sounded that the mayor was giving free rein to the rioters. What she meant was that ordering police to stand back for the purpose of allowing peaceful demonstration gave an unintended opening to lawless instigators.
The indispensible James Taranto, of The Wall Street Journal, writes that Baltimore “failed in the delicate balancing act of safeguarding both free expression and public order. As the latter deteriorated, the former inevitably suffered as well: It’s hard to protest when bricks are flying and buildings are burning.”
Allowing Madison kids to close down a major thoroughfare during rush-hour traffic is that kind of opening.
4) The culture of victimhood teaches people that they are not responsible for their own failings, and that the real problem is they’re not getting enough free stuff from the government. That, if too many black men are being arrested for crime, it is the fault of those who enforce the law and, indeed, of the statute itself.
Madison –– its city hall overrun with tramps and vagrants, its streets shut down by bullhorn-tooting children –– has managed to turn upside-down the expectations of a functional community.
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal observes, “the first and most important responsibility of any city government is to uphold law and order. When the streets are unsafe and crime is high, everything else –– getting businesses to invest and create jobs ––becomes next to impossible. People start voting with their feet.”
Say hello to Middleton, Fitchburg, and Sun Prairie!
5) Call in the troops sooner rather than later. At some point (this is week five) District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is bound to announce his decision whether to prosecute in the Tony T. Robinson death. (Baltimore cannot give him much solace.) Governor Walker should even now have a contingent of National Guard members assembled and ready to deploy within minutes. Boots on the ground. Do not wait for the mayor to request anything. Yes, the ACLU and The Capital Times will bitch. Send them the bill.
Instead, Baltimore is smoldering. Schools are closed. The Orioles will play baseball before an empty house in beautiful Camden Yards –– no fans permitted. This is how cities die. It’s how Detroit hollowed out in 1968.
Don’t say it can’t happen in Madison. We may lack the minority population but not the young crazies.
How much of a nerve? This comes from Isthmus, which used to run Blaska until it got rid of Blaska’s column (and, for that matter, used to run mine as well):
If you have a job in Madison, your office probably has one. Call them today at 608-204-9655 and tell them to stop delivery immediately. Cite an article by DavidBlaska titled “Madison can smell Baltimore’s smoke.”I won’t link to it because I don’t have the window open anymore and I’m sure you can find it yourself. I recommend reading it to see just how strident and wrong that mag is for running that tripe. They need to hear about it from their readers.
Racism can’t be good for business and reading the comments on that blog, it’s apparent that both IB and Blaska believe that it is.
So how much money can Madison liberals who can’t stand opinions different from theirs, who already subscribe to In Business, save by canceling in a huff? This much:
To qualify for a free subscription to In Business, including the annual Book of Lists (total value of $75) …
Madison is a big believer in diversity, except for intellectual diversity.
Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WNA) representatives met with U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, in Milwaukee April 10 to voice opposition to a proposed tax on advertising that would slash advertising revenue.
A group called the Advertising Coalition, composed of media companies, national media associations and advertising trade associations, scheduled the meeting. Members include the National Newspaper Association, the Newspaper Association of America, the American Advertising Federation, as well as broadcast media groups and companies. …
The meeting with Ryan, who serves as chairman of the powerful U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, comes as Congress scours the tax code for ways cut to corporate taxes and keep companies from relocating to countries with lower business tax rates.
A proposal from the former leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees recommended a $169 billion tax on advertising to help pay for tax reform bills. Advertisers would be allowed to deduct only half of their advertising costs as a business expense, as opposed to the current 100 percent deduction. Under the new plan, advertisers could amortize,or gradually write off, the remaining 50 percent of advertising expenses over 10 years.
Ryan told meeting attendees that everything was on the table regarding U.S. tax code at this point.
“This provision is a real threat to the newspaper industry, as wellas the entire advertising industry,” [Wisconsin Free Press publisher Andrew] Johnson said. “If we don’t fight it early on, it will be put in the bill and it would have devastating consequences for our industry.”
Advertising dollars reverberate throughout the economy and generate more spending beyond the initial exchange.
Every dollar of ad spending generates nearly $22 of economic output and every million dollars spent on ads supports 81 American jobs, according to IHS Global Insights, an economic consultancy.
According to IHS Global Insights data sited by the Advertising Coalition, advertising expenditures account for $105.8 billion in economic output in Wisconsin, or 17.6 percent of the $600 billion of the state’s total economic output. Advertising-driven sales of products and services support 16.8 percent of the 2.8 million jobs in Wisconsin.
Nationwide, advertising expenditures account for $.58 trillion in economic output in the United States, or 17.2 percent of the $33.8 trillion in total economic output in the country. Advertising driven sales of products and services help support 21.7 million jobs or 16 percent of the 136.2 trillion in the country.
The Advertising Coalition’s goal is to meet with key members of congress in their home states where local media and advertising executives can describe the role that advertising creates in their business.
You should find this ironic since it is increasingly rare for newspaper opinion pages to editorialize in opposition to tax increases, or in favor of tax cuts. Just like it’s ironic for a Republican to appear to be considering a tax increase, even a tax increase one of that politician’s party’s enemies.
Then again, newspaper opinion pages don’t stand up for civil liberties in the legal system either, as Rick Esenberg noticed:
You’d think that much has been written locally – and in the Journal Sentinel – about the John Doe proceeding. In a sense, you’d be right. But, in another equally important sense, you’d be wrong. The legacy media’s utter indifference to the profound implications for both freedom of speech and the way in which politics will be waged in the future is staggering. …
But a few things are clear. What the Doe prosecutors are trying is extremely aggressive and highly controversial. Even if you don’t think, as I do, their position is beyond the pale, it is on the outer reaches of what can reasonably be supported by state statutes and the Constitution. But even more troubling, they have decided to advance tenuous theories in the most aggressive way imaginable. They have not sought civil forfeitures, they have gone directly to DefCon 1 – criminal prosecution.
They have done so in a way that seems calculated to deter at least as much political speech as possible. They have invoked the mysterious John Doe process and attempted to gag their targets. As a result, no one who wishes to participate in the political process can really know what they think is illegal and how their conduct might lead to the same treatment. They have used strong arm police tactics – the type normally deployed against organized crime and drug dealers – that are certain to draw attention and strike fear in the hearts of activists who wonder if they might be next.
And all of this has been done at the instigation of partisans of one party who have directed a long running and enormously expensive investigation exclusively at their principal political opponent. (And, no, there is no evidence that any Republican prosecutor has had anything other than perfunctory involvement in any of this.)
It is not necessary to question the motivation of prosecutors to be troubled by this. Even if their sin was bad judgment and not bad intent, the impact on free speech is disturbing. And even if they didn’t regard themselves as engaged in political warfare, you can be sure that what goes round will eventually come around. Democrats who cheer secret investigations into the other side’s speech and associational activities and are heartened by leaks that place their political opponents in a bad light can be certain that, if the Doe stands, they will eventually be hoisted on their own petard. I’m not advocating that his happen (quite the opposite), but I am recognizing that one side’s tactics, if successful, will always be emulated by their opponents.
You’d think that legacy journalists would love the First Amendment. No matter what the merits of a campaign finance case or how highly they might regard any particular prosecutor, you’d think that they would see the problematic nature of this type of behavior.
But that hasn’t happened. Part of the problem, I think, is that the mainstream media has traditionally believed that it is not like you or me. It believes that as “the press” it has enhanced First Amendment rights as if the Constitution protected institutions and not actions. This was always wrong. Those who own broadcasting license or who used to buy ink by the barrel (you don’t need as much these days) have no greater right to expression than the hoi polloi.
But, in an era in which the barriers to becoming “media” are almost nonexistent, it is an incoherent distinction. It is increasingly impossible to know who “the media” is. Perhaps the inability of the legacy media to see the constitutional threat posed by the Doe investigation is a product of its commitment to its own privilege, even at a time when that privilege is slipping away.
(Until last week I didn’t even know — and I bet most people in the media didn’t know — that there is a criminal libel statute in Wisconsin. Many states don’t, and Wisconsin shouldn’t, particularly given that no one is likely to be able to tell you the last time anyone was prosecuted for libel. And Walker isn’t going to be the next person prosecuted.)
For the record, I do not support taxing advertising. At every level it is obvious except to the willfully blind that government wastes our tax dollars, therefore government should get no more of our tax dollars.
In response to Governor Scott Walker’s reference to the John Doe investigation as unconstitutional and a political witch-hunt, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm implied that Walker could be prosecuted for criminal defamation.
Here’s the likelihood that could happen. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not in this country.
Now, I assume that John Chisholm knows that. I assume that he knows that because any lawyer with even the slightest background in First Amendment law would know it. I assume it because the alternative is a frightening, I would hate to think that a lawyer who has the power to charge people with crimes and presumes to exercise that authority in areas like campaign speech and finance does not know the constitutional obstacles to charging people with a crime for speech.
According to the First Amendment Center, Iowa has no criminal defamation statute, although (oddly) there have been efforts to prosecute people for such an offense. For reasons that I won’t get into here, it is an open question whether any such prosecution would be constitutional in this context. But anywhere in the United States, a prosecutor who sought to bring such charges would, at minimum, be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Walker made statements of fact (not opinion) and that he knew they were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. Simply proving that he was “wrong” (if that even could be done) wouldn’t cut it.
I’d as soon put my money on the 4-15 Brewers winning 100 games this year.
In response to the same statement by Walker, prosecutor Fran Schmitz calls on Walker to support public release of the documents that Walker believes Schmitz gathered improperly. That’s also scary talk from a prosecutor. There is a legitimate question as to whether the seizure of private records of political activists was proper. In fact, the only two judges who have ruled on the question have found that it was not. In other words, it seems possible – I’d say probable – that Schmitz should not have the records that he now wants to make public.
If these records were improperly seized, releasing them would make the injury to these activists irreparable. What they had a right to keep private would now be permanently public. Yet Schmitz seems to be suggesting the best response to an allegation that prosecutors should not have seized private records is to make them public.
Imagine, for a moment, that this had been done to a newspaper or broadcast operation. Assume an early dawn raid on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s offices at Fourth and State in which reporters’ files were carried away and editors were told to keep their mouths shut about what had been done to them. (The prosecutors here did contemplate going after broadcast journalists.) Our newspapers and broadcast stations would be apoplectic about the “chilling impact” on freedom of speech that such tactics would have. And rightly so. …
The elected District Attorney of Milwaukee County actually suggested that someone who criticized him should be charged with a crime.
Let’s start with the easy part. This is the type of statement that will get earn a law student a very bad grade in Constitutional Law. The question is not whether Walker was “right” or “wrong.” At minimum, one would have to show that Walker made statements of fact (not opinion). At minimum, one would have to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he knew the statements were untrue or acted with reckless disregard of their truth and falsity. Even then, there remain serious constitutional questions regarding the criminalization of political speech.There is no way – not in this country – that such a prosecution could ever succeed.
But the problem here is larger than a single lawyer’s understanding of constitutional law or appreciation for the First Amendment. Any lawyer who suggests that political speech should be criminally prosecuted might expect to be laughed at. But when that lawyer has the power to invoke the machinery of the criminal law, it is no longer a laughing matter.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 