The Meitivs live in suburban Montgomery County, Md., which is a bedroom for many Washington bureaucrats who make their living minding other people’s business. The Meitivs, to encourage independence and self-reliance, let their ten- and six-year-old children walk home alone from a park about a mile from their home. For a second time, their children were picked up by police, this time three blocks from home. After confinement in a squad car for almost three hours, during which the police never called or allowed the children to call the Meitivs, the children were given to social workers who finally allowed the parents to reclaim their children at about 11 p.m. on a school night. The Meitivs’ Kafkaesque experiences concluded with them accused of “unsubstantiated” neglect.
Today’s saturating media tug children beyond childhood prematurely, but not to maturity. Children are cosseted by intensive parenting that encourages passivity and dependency, and stunts their abilities to improvise, adapt, and weigh risks. Mark Hemingway, writing at the Federalist, asks: “You know what it’s called when kids make mistakes without adult supervision and have to wrestle with the resulting consequences? Growing up.”
Increased knowledge of early-childhood development has produced increased belief in a “science” of child rearing. This has increased intolerance of parenting that deviates from norms that are as changeable as most intellectual fads.
“Intensive parenting” is becoming a government-enforced norm. Read “The day I left my son in the car” (Salon), Kim Brooks’s essay on her ordeal after leaving her four-year-old in the car as she darted into a store for about five minutes. Writing in the Utah Law Review, David Pimentel of Ohio Northern University notes that at a moment when “children have never been safer,” government is abandoning deference to parents’ discretion in child rearing. In 1925, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of parents “to direct the upbringing and education of children.” Today, however, vague statutes that criminalize child “neglect” or “endangerment” undermine the social legitimacy of parental autonomy. And they ignore the reality that almost every decision a parent makes involves risks. Let your child ride a bike to school, or strap her into a car for the trip? Which child is more at risk, the sedentary one playing video games and risking obesity, or the one riding a bike? It is, Pimentel says, problematic for the legal system to enforce cultural expectations when expectations, partly shaped by media hysteria over rare dangers such as child abductions, are in constant flux.
Time was, colleges and universities acted in loco parentis to moderate undergraduates’ comportment, particularly regarding sex and alcohol. Institutions have largely abandoned this, having decided that students are mature possessors of moral agency. But institutions have also decided that although undergraduates can cope with hormones and intoxicants, they must be protected from discomforting speech, which must be regulated by codes and confined to “free-speech zones.” Uncongenial ideas must be foreshadowed by “trigger warnings,” lest students, who never were free-range children and now are as brittle as pretzels, crumble. Young people shaped by smothering parents come to college not really separated from their “helicopter parents.” Such students come convinced that the world is properly devoted to guaranteeing their serenity, and that their fragility entitles them to protection from distressing thoughts.
As Penn State historian Gary Cross says, adolescence is being redefined to extend well into the 20s, and the “clustering of rites of passage” into adulthood — marriage, childbearing, permanent employment — “has largely disappeared.” Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Cross says that “delayed social adulthood” means that “in 2011, almost a fifth of men between 25 and 34 still lived with their parents,” where many play video games: “The average player is 30 years old.” The percentage of men in their early 40s who have never married “has risen fourfold to 20 percent.”
In the 1950s, Cross says, with Jack Kerouac and Hugh Hefner “the escape from male responsibility became a kind of subculture.” Today, oldies radio and concerts by septuagenarian rockers nurture the cult of youth nostalgia among people who, wearing jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers all the way, have slouched from adolescence to Social Security without ever reaching maturity.
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The number one single today in 1963:
Another one-hit wonder had the number one single today in 1968:
The number one single today in 1974 might be the very definition of the term “novelty song”:
The number one British single today in 1975:
(Which more appropriately should have been called “Stand by Your Men,” since Tammy Wynette had had three husbands up to then, and two more thereafter.)
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First, for those who believe the British are the height of sophistication and are so much more couth than us Americans: This was the number one song in the U.K. today in 1986:
The chicken is not having a birthday. Pervis Jackson of the Spinners is:
So is drummer Bill Bruford, who played for Yes, King Crimson and Genesis:
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The number one British single today in 1962 was based on Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite”:
The number one single today in 1964:
The number one album today in 1970 was Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s “Déjà Vu”:
Think the “Super Bowl Shuffle” created the singing jocks genre of music? Then you haven’t heard the number one British single today in 1970:
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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.”
Was ist das, you ask? From IMDB.com:
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:
As the series’ budget was comparatively low, the set designers resorted to using modified common everyday objects; for instance, electric irons, inverted clock pendulums, washing-machine console parts and designer pencil sharpeners were used as props control panels, sewing thread coils and banana plugs as futuristic machine parts, and plastic cups as ceiling lights. Many panels were produced by the then-newly invented thermoforming process. Lots of designer furniture was also used, notably Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s 258-type couch,Harry Bertoia‘s Diamond-type armchair, Yrjö Kukkapuro‘s Karuselli-type armchair, Charles Eames‘s Aluminium group #EA105 chair, George Nelson‘s DAF Chair and Eero Saarinen‘s Tulpe table/chair combo. Joe Colombo‘s famous Smoke-type drinking glasses were used throughout the series. …
The stage designer was Rolf Zehetbauer, who later won an Academy Award for his work on Cabaret.
“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.)
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… then you can appreciate my past ironic week.
For those who don’t know the musical references, let’s begin your day with some classical music from Gustav Holst …
… Ralph (pronounced “rafe” for some reason) Vaughan Williams …
… and the classical composer named Leckrone (who?):
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The number one British single today in 1959:
The number one album today in 1971 was Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s “4 Way Street”:
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After this …
… Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne announced Tuesday he would not charge Madison police officer Matt Kenny for fatally shooting Tony Robinson in the incident captured on police camera.
Ozanne made the correct decision because, among other things, a jury probably would not have convicted Kenny of anything had he been charged and gone to trial. The success rate of prosecutions of police officers shows that juries realize better than politicians and the politically offended that police are indeed the thin blue line between the citizen and the bad guy.
(The Wisconsin State Journal embarrassed itself Tuesday and Wednesday with an absurdly glowing story and editorial about Ozanne and his decision. Ozanne, remember, inserted himself in the Act 10 debate when the Dane County district attorney has no ability or right to intervene in legislative issues. Praising a politician for doing what he should have done is apparently the new State Journal opinion standard.)
To no surprise in Madison, the following happened yesterday, chronicled by WAOW-TV (and thus probably WKOW-TV in Madison, since they have the same owner):
People angry about a prosecutor’s decision not to charge a white Madison police officer for killing an unarmed biracial man have conducted a mock trial of the officer in protest.
About 150 to 200 protesters marched through the streets of Wisconsin’s capital city on Wednesday before gathering outside of the Dane County Courthouse to stage the fake trial.
The crowd cheered when actors said they would charge Officer Matt Kenny in the March killing of 19-year-old Tony Robinson. Members of the Young, Gifted and Black Coalition, which has led protests since the killing, said the demonstration was intended to represent the processes they wished Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne had used.
Because mob justice is apparently superior to the actual criminal justice system in the minds of Young Gifted and Black, defender of a 19-year-old convicted felon who police believed was assaulting people while on hallucinogens. One concludes that had Kenny been killed by Robinson, the protesters would have been fine with that.
And for those who think the protesters were perfectly benign, Media Trackers shows photos the rest of the media didn’t:
The mental illness argument brought up in many police-involved shootings doesn’t hold water. Police will say that mental illness is not adequately dealt with in our society. (Perhaps because government wastes tax money generally; even fiscal non-conservatives should grasp that if government doesn’t spend tax dollars wisely, tax dollars can’t be spent where maybe more spending is needed.)
In the past year I covered the murder of a 79-year-old man killed by someone whose lengthy criminal record was blamed on mental health issues. His victim, however, is as dead as if the murderer was as sane as you or me. Before that there was the man who sexually assaulted his underage neighbor, tried to kill his own family by a bomb, then tried to have killed, then drugs planted in the car of, his soon-to-be ex-wife. His lawyer’s excuse: Depression.
It is possible to support police and question whether we are jailing too many people. To do that requires asking legislators why certain crimes are crimes. (The man shot by New York City police, for instance, apparently committed the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes.) Hillary Clinton is apparently campaigning for president on the issue of undoing her husband’s push to jail people in the 1990s. She needs to explain, however, how letting people out of jail will not increase the crime rate, since it logically appears that the U.S.’ high incarceration rate is linked to decreasing crime rates.
There are two ways to prevent what happened in Madison in March. The first is: Don’t commit crimes. (And regardless of how you feel about taxing cigarettes, theft, armed robbery and beating people are considered crimes by most people.) The dirty little fact about the recent officer-involved shootings in Madison, Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere is that in every case I’m aware of, the man shot by police had a substantial previous criminal record. That made him a danger not just to the police officer, but to the public at large.
The second is: Get to know your local police. That’s easier to do in small towns than in big cities, but most police departments in large population or geographic areas have regular patrol areas. You’re better off if the police know you from previous contacts that didn’t involve citations or handcuffs.
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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.)
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The number one British album today in 1983 (with the clock ticking on my high school days) was Spandau Ballet’s “True”:
The number one British album today in 2000 was Tom Jones’ “Reload,” which proved that Jones could sing about anything, and loudly:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 