V: The First 8 Minutes

So here are the first 8 minutes of the V remake. Obviously, I don’t think we’re to expect anything revolutionary here but I do want to point out a few things right off the bat:

• Elizabeth Mitchell
• The kind of meta ID4 joke
• Elizabeth Mitchell
• The science vs faith conflict can only be resolved through an alien invasion.
• No red jumpsuits!
• Jesus tries to take out a guy in a wheelchair. Asshole.
• Elizabeth Mitchell
• No Blu-Blockers!
• Monica Baccarin

Beyond that, it seems that if the aliens are going to arrive with a false message of peace and love, you’d think they’d do it in a less terrifying way than hovering over cities and taking out a jet fighter.

And, going by the end credits, they will use porno music for the score.

Are there better things I could be doing with my spare time? Only about a hundred but I’ll still watch it.

Turn down the Suck. Turn up the Good.

Remember last week when I said I was looking for “the positive, the optimistic, and the constructive”?  On Babble‘s Strollerderby blog, there was an item about an author, Lauren Myracle, who writes for pre-teens. Scholastic, which features book fairs for young readers, had requested that she drop any references to one of her characters having two mothers. If not, her book would not be featured. The author, of course, refused.

The blog post also included this response from a librarian (which I saw a while back on AJ Kandy’s Twitter feed) to a concerned mother who wanted a children’s book featuring a same-sex wedding removed from the library. Instead of snidely dismissing her, he wrote a well-thought out response, to address her objection and used library policies, the U.S. Constitution, the law, and the fact that philosophies can vary within a community to defend his inclusion of the book.

Imagine if people actually took time to openly and politely discuss their differences instead of shouting each other down. Well, cable news and talk radio and about half the blogosphere and most of the Twitterverse would cease to exist but would there also be a down side?

More of this please.

Negative

Every now and again, my best friend from high school, who currently lives in Toronto, and I get in touch by phone to catch up. When we most recently met up, we recalled some of our behaviour during our formative years with some measure of embarrassment.

“Why?” I asked him, “Was it so important for me to be so angry and quarrelsome?” My life was alright then. I had a decent home and a good, if a little distant, family. I had modest life goals which would, admittedly, change over time.

My friend had a simple answer, “because we were assholes.” While I prefer to think of my younger self as a jackass, he’s not far off the mark. Other kids with similar backgrounds didn’t behave as I did but for whatever reason, I wore my cynicism as a badge of honour throughout most of my teens and twenties.

To be honest, I actually flipped between cynicism and naivety constantly. I can’t pretend I was all jaded when my favourite album in high school was Paul Simon’s Graceland, ferchrissakes.

Despite that, I spent much of my adulthood believing that cynicism is most often the correct response to pretty much everything. It’s only recently that I’ve discovered how lazy an attitude that is. It’s an instant gratification thing whereas being optimistic may take longer to pay off but the emotional rewards may be richer. And science (science!) seems to agree. Of course, there is a line between being optimistic and being deluded, just as there is there is a line between being a healthy skeptic and being a nihilist.

All of this is to say is that I’ve been making a concerted effort to bring more positive influences in my life. This has to do with adjusting my personal attitudes but mostly it has to do with not seeking out things on the internet that I know will do nothing but anger me.

So I stopped reading Mark Steyn in Macleans. He’s a man of no real accomplishment, other than a few books about musical theatre, who asks us, week after week, to join him in his seething hatred of the evil Mohammedans. What can I do about that? Leave a comment on the website, telling him he’s wrong? He’s an inconsequential boor.

And I probably should be angry about this homophobic woman but Charlie Brooker does such a good job skewering her that the situation would hardly be improved by my own mute outrage.

And while I’m at it, I should probably stop overdosing on The Huffington Post which gets me outraged over things that occur in a nation that I don’t live in. At least with Rabble, when I get pissed off, I have option of emailing my MP, which I do, all the time.

After dinner is complete, and the lad has his supper, and we take our nightly walk, and the garbage and recycling is taken out, and the lad has his bath, and the floor is cleaned, and the lad has his bottle, and I read him his story, and he’s put to bed, and the tea is made, I have, maybe, two hours a night of quiet time to myself. So maybe it’s not a constructive use of my free time to watch Real Time with Bill Maher. Even if I generally agree with him most of the time, I find him to be such a sneering dick that it makes me question my own beliefs.

I’m tired of snideness, bile, and smugness as reflexive attitudes. And so I’m going to be seeking the positive, the optimistic, and the constructive.

Yes, I know, I’ll be searching for a while.

A Timeline of Infant Safety Advice

Over the years, recommendations have changed for travelling by car with an infant or child. Here are some highlights which show how our thinking on the issue of public safety has evolved:

• 1909 – “The Royal Canadian Ministry for The Well Being of Livestock and Human Infants would like to remind parents that it is ill-advised to transport children in a motor-car by tying a rope around their waists and dragging them behind the vehicle. While a common practice in many provinces, this can result in injuries that would later deprive them of their ability to work as labourers. If there is no alternative transportation available, drivers are requested not to exceed 15mph.”
• 1929 – “The Royal Canadian Ministry for the Regulation of Automobiles would like to remind car owners that children should be discouraged from driving their parents’ automobiles until their feet can easily reach the pedals.”
• 1959 – “The Department of Health recommends that, when travelling by automobile, children are requested to remain in the back seat while the car is in motion, where they may roam freely and safely.”
• 1969 – “The National Transportation Safety Board in association with the Department for the Prevention of Negative Vibes would like to advise that a recall has been issued on macramé infant restraining devices.”
• 1979 – “Due to a number of recent accidents, The Department of Health would like to remind drivers of station wagons that children should not be permitted to roam freely in the back of the automobile if there are free seats. Additionally, for safety reasons, children should not be in the back of the station wagon if the driver is also transporting a case of glass Pop Shoppe bottles.”
• 1989 – “Health Canada would like to remind drivers that, if they are smoking in a car with children present, please crack the window open, weather permitting.”
• 1999 – “In the event the so-called Y2K bug results in the cessation of all electronic devices, drivers are cautioned against driving with children in the car on December 31.”
• 2007 – “Rear-facing car-seats should be used for infants until at least 12 months of age.”
• 2008 – “Make that 24 months.”
• 2009 – “They really should be in the car as little as possible. If you love your child, you’ll listen to us.”
• 2019 – “What the Hell are you doing? ! What did we just tell you? Here, just give us the baby.  Jesus.”