I'm on the road currently, which means falling behind in my tv watching. However, you can read everywhere, so have some post American election analysis of the Republican party:

The GOP in fantasy land

Choice quote: "As GOP politicians and pundits pile on Romney in defeat, they often argue that he was done in by not being severely conservative enough; if only he’d let Ryan be Ryan, voters would have been won over by right-wing orthodoxy offering a clear-cut alternative to Obama’s alleged socialism. In truth, Romney was a perfect embodiment of the current GOP. As much as the Republican Party is a radical party, and a nearly all-white party, it has also become the Fantasyland Party. It’s an isolated and gated community impervious to any intrusions of reality from the “real America” it solipsistically claims to represent."

The GOP and me: story of a passionate Republican falling out of love.

Post election notes for the GOP: by John Scalzi, who has a way with words, as this quote shows:

"1. Recognize your brand is damaged. You can’t seriously be considered to be the party of fiscal probity at this point; your record for the last thirty years makes this laughable. Bush shot your international relations standing in the foot. All you have left is social issues, and — surprise! — on social issues, most people who are not you think you’re intolerant at best and racist, sexist, homophobic and bigoted at worst.
Seriously, guys: What does the GOP actually want to be the party of? At this point, and for the last few years, it’s been “The Party of Not Obama.” This is not a good way to run a railroad."


The Republicans post election day: sums it up thusly:

"Some Republicans have been warning one another for years about the stupidity of alienating a fast-growing and influential group of Americans. It’s not working. The Hispanic vote went overwhelmingly to Democrats in House and Senate races as well, by roughly the same 75-to-25 split. “We have to fix our Hispanic problem as quickly as possible,” said John Weaver, a Republican strategist.

He’s right. But the Republicans don’t have a Hispanic problem. They have an America problem, a country that is growing more diverse and, on a wide range of issues, shows a sensible moderation and social tolerance far out of step with radio ranting and Tea Party rigidity. It wasn’t just Hispanics who heartily rejected Republicans on Tuesday. It also was African-Americans, Asian-Americans, young people and, to perhaps the greatest effect, women."

Apparantly the Republican strategy to counter the effect of Bill Clinton's rock star performance in support of Obama is to try and divide the Obama and Clinton camp again by suddenly discovering they like Bill Clinton and think he's been an awesome president. This is hilarious in general if, like me, you don't suffer from complete amnesia over the 90s and the violent hatred the Republicans spewed in the direction of both Clintons back then, and hilarious in particular coming from Newt Gingrich. Mind you, I'm entirely willing to believe Gingrich has mixed feelings. After all, he actually was important in the Clinton era. (As opposed to now, where he's being out-viled by the Tea Party folk by a mile.) Also, because you can't make such stuff, up, he actually told his wife (not sure whether it was the one he dumped in the hospital or the one after that), who told Newsweek in 1996, that the reason why he always took Dick Armey along when going to negotiate with Clinton was that "I melt when I'm around him".

Sadly for Newt, the chapter in Clinton's memoirs on Gingrich shows not many signs of his foe crush being reciprocated, but it is an entertaining and clever take not just on Gingrich but those forces in the Republican party which dominate today.

( Which is why you find the relevant passages below the cut )

Finished my queer_fest Babylon 5 story last night; it's off to be beta'd, but the posting date isn't until June 1st, so there's no hurry. Going back to the B5verse once in a while, and in this case specifically to the Centauri, with Vir at the center of it, feels like getting back into very comfortable worn slippers. Though due to the prompt I was actually able to do something with the Centauri that I hadn't done before, so - old slippers with new soles? (And now I'm nearly at Londo's dancing metaphor from s1, Great Maker, as he would say.) Anyway, the other reason why writing it, delving back into the B5 verse felt so great is that it was and as far as I know still is blessedly free of shipper wars. Of course, no sooner have I written this that I expect someone to tell me that I'm wrong about this and that I totally missed the epic battles between Susan/Talia and Susan/Marcus shippers, or the mighty war between John/Delenn and Delenn/Lennier shippers, due to not hanging out in the Ivanova or Minbari centric corners of fandom enough in my Centauri and Narn centric fannish life, but - I really don't think that's how B5 fandom spent its time, back in the day, or spends its time now.

(Every time I feel like growling "a pox on romance and our cultural obsession with it that poisons storylines and fannish discourse", though, I remind myself that I'm not immune, that there are romances both textual and subtextual I was/am rooting for and enjoy(ed), and that some of these are probably just as annoying or incomprehensible in their attraction to other people.)

(I will say that I remain eternally grateful Londo was not played by a hot young actor but the divine and decidedly middle aged, plumb and not at all pretty Peter Jurasik. It meant the "omg why so mean to the hottie!?!? Death score what death score?!? Must pair him with *insert character also played by young and attractive actor*!!" crowd stayed away from what is still my favourite fall and redemption storyline on tv.)

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With two movies about to be released and a third finished with an uncertain release date, Joss Whedon seems to get interviewed basically everywhere you turn. Now love him, hate him or remain utterly indifferent, but one advantage the man has is being eminently quotable (not many writers who can write witty dialogue are also able to make it up on the spot, so I'm suitably impressed). My favourite quote from the current crop of interviews is probably:

Q: You've been said to encourage fanfiction. How do you feel about scholarship about your work and the fact that academics tend to delve quite deeply into it, perhaps to the point of publishing interpretations you did not intend?

A: All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.

He's always been consistent about this, which makes the "Let's take *character X*/*show universe Y* from the evil/incompetent Whedon" or "Joss needs to learn fannish interpretation is so superior" posts feel a bit like teenagers casting themselves as daring and rebellious when their parents, far from forbidding them to go out, are in fact encouraging them to stay up until dawn and make their own experiences. It's not something inherent or original to Whedonverse fandoms, of course, but something I've observed everywhere, though not every creator or people-in-charge-of-fannish-source-copyrights are as laid back about fannish discourse. And nothing feeds the fannish sense of outraged moral superiority so much as a creator/author/person-in-charge-of-copyright who gets possessive/protective of their characters (and extremer cases is silly enough to get into arguments with reviewers on message boards, looking at you, Aaron Sorkin). They are the man, we are the true, far better artists and interpreters of *insert character/fannish source*, and, that golden stalwart of posts, "should just shut up".

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Speaking of interactions between fannish interpretations and their source, in the last few days a tumblr containing hilarious fictional Hillary Clinton texts has been linked all over the internet. With the results that Hillary Clinton saw it as well, made a submission of her own and invited the two fan creators to meet her. Which they did. It occurs to me that if the online media are anything to go buy (always a qualified if), Hillary in the years of the Obama presidency has ended up as the most popular (living) Democrat politician. Which I don't think would have happened had she won the primaries and become President (not least because a sitting President even in a best case scenario is bound to disappoint some expectations of their electorate), but there it is. Not a bad note to go out on, if she really retires after her current term.

Politics: Egytian women protesting in Cairo. Make sure to watch the video that comes with the article as well, because we hear various women speak on the situation, which I think has been missing in a lot of reporting. Also, it's a somewhat depressing comment on short attention spans that everyone was following the spring uprising but what's going on now hardly warrents a remark on lj, and I'm not excluding myself here.
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Yesterday I reflected that it's incredible it was ten years already that The Fellowship of the Ring was released in cinemas world wide. While despite (or because of?) its popularity Jackson's film versions of Tolkien's saga always had their detractors as well, and you can argue about individual choices he made, what to emphasize and what to cut etc., there's no denying that it was an epic fannish event. Now we get the first trailer of The Hobbit, here, and I am absolutely thrilled. My favourite moment is the use of the dwarves' song in Bilbo's home, because that captures so well the description of how in the book hearing them sing awakened something in Bilbo that made him go from being overwhelmed and irritated by his uninvited guests to, well, see and hear for yourself. BAGGINS!

And now for the tv meme most recently spotted at local_max's!

Which TV shows did you start watching in 2011?

Sanctuary. As in, I marathoned the first three seasons when they became available on dvd. Do not spoil me for s4 in the comments. I also started Camelot but stopped early on because it was not for me. Game of Thrones, which was okay, aka the flaws of same were already in the source and ditto for the qualities, though it should get some kind of dubious award for its use of sexposition (most awkward example: Littlefinger explaining his motivation while two whores "train"). The Borgias which I loved, loved, loved.


Which TV shows did you let go of in 2011?

Dexter. Alas.


Which TV shows did you mean to get into but didn't in 2011? Why?

Lost Girls (recced to me but there's lack of time), Homeland (actually, I was never planning to get into it before Christmas for lack of time, but after, I will. abigail_n has really made me curious).



Which TV shows do you intend on checking out in 2012?

Homeland for sure. Possibly one of the two fairy tale shows. Not the one which I gather via fannish osmosis is inadvertendly hilarious for using really bad German when named after our two linguistic professors of the 19th century who other than for fairy tales are famous for their dictionary of the German language. (Jakob Grimm had quite the acerbic temper, I'll have you know. He was the Holmes to his brother's Watson, but as opposed to Wilhelm didn't have much of a sense of humour. I'm not sure he would have been amused. He also was an Übergeek; this is the guy who travelled to Paris just so he could read the Manessehandschrift, aka medieval German songs at the French National Library, and didn't do anything else there.)


Which TV show impressed you least in 2011?

Alas. Dexter.


Which TV show do you think you might let go of in 2012 unless things significantly improve?

Thankfully, my other shows while not perfect are doing pretty well.


Which TV show impressed you the most in 2011? Why?

Being Human, season 3. Most dramatic unjumping the shark and growing the beard since Angel season 4 lured me back from almost giving up after s3. Everything that had made me so angry and dissappointed about s2 was dealt with. The season had a clear narrative arc. And compared with some tv that came later - looks as DW season 6 - the way it uncompromisingly delivered on what was set up is even more impressive. Coming close behind: The Borgias, for being atmospheric, creating a great, rich ensemble of characters who were all interesting, and for its gorgeous cinematography.


Which TV shows do you think you'll never let go of no matter how crappy they get? Why?

See, I don't do that. If it gets to the point where I get more misery than enjoyment out of a fannish source, I let go. It's just not worth it, staying around, feeling miserable, spreading misery, not for me and not for the people still enjoying the fannish source, and I never got the point of hate communities, either.


Shows I watched and loved that aren't mentioned on this list because I started them in another year

The Good Wife: not perfect, but overall still so good I enjoy returning week after week. Merlin which is the type of show that while I objectively see the flaws of just taps into my emotions in a way that makes me love it, so seeing it step up its game and deliver some genuine game changers (and not as cliffhangers but early and mid season) is all the more pleasurable. (Also the acting and the cinematography this year were so very, very good it's irritating beyond belief it'll never be seen award material in said categories.) Fringe which so far has made up for what I found problematic in s3 and is very, very enjoyable to watch; Doctor Who which for all its flaws and the fact I have an emotional disconnect currently does deliver the occasional pearl beyond price (aka The Doctor's Wife and The God Complex) and besides is the kind of show which has cycles where you can't love every season or era in the same way, and that's no problem, because the very premise is constant reinvention. And of course I throw in the occasional rewatch of my old loves, B5, DS9, etc. I've been meaning to get on a BTVS and AtS rewatch as well.

...during the last ten or so days:

1.) The "birther" hysteria culminates in Obama producing his birth certificate (longer version, as apparantly the White House already released a shorter version eons ago). My possibly unfair thought on this was "only in America". More seriously, I also thought about our last president (note: German presidents are only heads of state, not heads of goverment, i.e. they're only there for representation, not for actual governing, that's what the chancellor does), who flounced off (it can't be expressed differently) because he thought the media was too mean to him. I kid you not, and thus forced Ms. Merkel to come up with an emergency replacement. And he never, ever, would have been asked to present his birth certificate.

2.) Then I gathered through fannish osmosis and newspaper articles that there is now a new Superman story in which he - not Clark Kent, Superman in his Superman persona - renounces his American citizenship, because people around the globe keep blaming the US goverment for his actions and see him as a tool of same. Well, if you drape yourself in the flag colours, they would, Supes. (Also, ask Dr. Osterman and Mark Milton about this.) Anyway, so Kal-El, immigrant from Krypton, is no longer an American. Apparantly this was the second most talked about thing after Obama's birth certificate and caused much indignation. Again: only in America. I don't mean that in a negative way. As a comic book reader (though more Marvel than DC), I find it endearing they care that much.

Footnote: now the Doctor, despite also being an alien with an exploded home planet, does not have British citizenship to begin with despite mostly hanging out on the island. And our own most successful sci fi hero in Germany was originally American to begin with (in the 60s, when the pulp fiction series Perry Rhodan started), not German, and immediately renounced American citizenship once the plot kicked in with a vengeance and he discovered an alien ship with high tech that no single nation on Earth should have. Basically: aliens and nationaless cosmopolitism are a very European thing.

3.) And then a high profile terrorist died after, I'm told, more than 500 billions of dollars were spent on a decades long manhunt. To no one's surprise, he hadn't gone very far, just to the neigbouring country from where he was last seen before ordering the death of about 3000 people in the World Trade Centre. The way this event was presented in the media felt a bit as if Obama was an action hero played by Samuel Jackson, at last firing the decisive shot that kills the film's villain. And then there is a happy ending. It occured to me that if Osama bin Laden had been captured alive, it would have been incredibly inconvenient and messy for all parties concerned. Would he have ended up in Guantanamo? Would he have gotten a trial? If so, would he have used all the money from his very rich (and quite familiar with American business) family to hire a team of lawyers, or would it have been a military tribunal? What would the defense have brought up? It was all Mohammad Atta's idea, and our client can't be judged by any unbiased jury because there can't be any? The US was fine with our client as long as he was busy agitating against the Russians in Afghanistan? Or maybe he'd have insisted on defending himself and would have behaved as contemptously of the court as Slovodan Milosevic did when they tried him in Den Haag.

There is a reason why so many films prefer to kill off their villains. (Unless they're already planning the sequel.)

But. I can't help but remember. Fiction, again, one of Terry Prattchet's Discworld novels, one of the darker ones, Night Watch. At the end, our hero, copper-turned-watch commander Sam Vimes finally has caught up with the story's main villain. Who is a repellent individual, responsible for many deaths. Both directly and by influencing other people, showing them new ways to torture, more ways to kill. And as a last act, once he figures out he's well and truly caught, he tries to provoke Vimes into killing him. It would fit his own narrative: that they're really not that different, that it just matters who has the upper hand, is the better killer. But Sam Vimes does not. He's making an arrest instead, grimly sure that this man will face what he did - in a trial.

Well, you know. That's fiction. Out of this world.

More halfamoon goodness:

BTVS:

Diamond Mind: brief but wonderful Anya vid.

Multifandom:

There's also the annual love thread for disliked female characters. Some personal favourites to share the love for:


Guinevere from Merlin. As the poster said, every time someone hates on Gwen, a fairy dies. Trufax.

Amy Gardner from West Wing.

Gwen Cooper from Torchwood.


Ana-Lucia Cortez from Lost. As londonkds once said, if Ana-Lucia had been Luis Cortez with the exact same storyline, fandom would have been all over him.

Lily Evans Potter.

Doctor Who:

Article about the portrayal of historical characters on Doctor Who. IMO the author is way too kind to both Victory of the Daleks the episode and Jolly Old Churchill, but that's a pet peeve of mine, and the article is still interesting to read. Am utterly unsurprised that Mark Gattis wanted "the Churchill from the war posters", btw. Oh, and this reminds me, what's this I hear about the writer of the worst of the three Sherlock episodes, aka the middle one, having received a DW episode assignment in season 6? Ah well. I suppose something has to balance the high expectations for the Neil Gaiman episode.

Finally, one of the most touching image of this last week:



The protester went to the feet of the soldier and asked him to help protect them from Mubarak’s thugs and the soldier is crying because he said that he can’t because he was not given the orders to.

Because it's a an unfair fact fanatics of all persuasions easily grab the headlines while acts of decency don't, I was particularly cheered to read this:


Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas, serving as human shields. Quote from the article:

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

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On a far more trivial but fun note, I found a quote that reminded me again why I like John Lennon. (You know, other than for musical reasons.) Not just because it's witty - which he so often was - but because he's poking fun at his own tendencies to self-dramatize. (Many people can make fun of others, but painting yourself as the butt of the joke is a much, much rarer art.) Plus he manages to sum up every band break-up reason ever in the following masterpiece of a statement:

Epstein was dead and people were bothering with us business, the whole pressure of it finally got to us. So, that’s what people do when they’re together - they start picking on each other, you know. It was like “It’s because of you, you got the tambourine wrong and it’s because of that that my whole life is a misery!” You know, and it became petty but the manifestations were on each other because we were the only ones we had.

"You got the tambourine wrong and it's because of that that my whole life is a misery!" is just the best complaint ever and shall now be the subtitle under ever break-up related interview I'm reading/watching in the next decades. Thanks, John.:)

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Still on a good note, Mitch Benn says it all, and not just for Doctor who fans. Just insert the name of the show you're addicted to in the following song instead, but it's oh so true, and not just for Saturday nights:

You know what I find typical about the general responses to the recent wikileaks? That the media - well, ours, anyway - focuses on bruised egos, despite the fact the various descriptions from the diplomatic mailbag are hardly surprising. (If anything, disappointingly mild. You can't find anything worse to say on Berlusconi than that he's a show-off party goer? The guy who keeps making a mockery out of the justice system since he got to power the first time? Get your priorities straight, diplomats.) Whereas I had to read thoroughly before stumbling over a little aside in the Guardian to the effect the American goverment pressured the German one not to press charges against the CIA agents who kidnapped and tortured a German citizen who happened to have the same name as a terrorist. Because that's clearly not nearly as important than the diplomats reporting Merkel as averse to risk-taking and Westerwelle as "exuberant" yet not good at foreign politics. Only a German curse will do: Himmelherrgottnochmal!

On to more joyful, i.e. fannish things. Have some recs:

The West Wing:

Pages Left Unturned: lovely Andrea Wyatt portrait. I don't really 'ship in West Wing, but Andy/Toby comes close, and is, imo, one of the most successful attempts at showing a "can't live with each other, can't live without each other" relationship without demonizing one of the partners or showing him/her as delusional.

Merlin:

What Matters More: a great tag to 3.12 which will be AU'd next Saturday but until then showcases Gwen and Uther beautifully and has terrific tense character interaction.

Depressing political news from the US are expectedly depressing. My sympathies, non-Republican Americans who did vote. Then again, probably jealous that the Tea Party beat his record as most absurd thing to succeed in American politics, George W. Bush made a comeback when, according to this article, he revealed that the worst moment of his presidency was when rapper Kanya West called him a racist.

....

I've seen someone, I forgot who, suggest an American midterms elections soundtrack yesterday and it included the Beatles' Revolution. Right era, wrong song, imo; clearly American politics right now are and have been for a good while Helter Skelter. (Aka Paul McCartney Accidentally Invents Heavy Metal.) (Also very useful to flummox people who are into the John = rock, Paul = ballads division.) Not, incidentally, a favourite of mine but undeniably powerful; I agree with Alan Pollack who wrote: Crank this one up some late night when you're home alone and all the lights are off, and it's guaranteed to raise the hair on the back of your neck; to scare and unsettle you. And that phenomenon has absolutely nothing to do with what knowledge you do or don't possess about the song's bizarre connection with Charles Manson. You have to look beyond the form and style here to the lyrics, vocal performance, and recording production in order to discover the roots of this song's sinister effect. Allow me to demonstrate:



That song came into existence because Paul had read an interview with Pete Townshend in which the later described the Who's new single, 'I Can See for Miles', as the loudest, rawest, dirtiest and most uncompromising song they had ever done. Quoth the ever competitive Mr. McCartney: So I sat down and wrote 'Helter Skelter' to be the most raucous vocal, the loudest drums, et cetera et cetera. I was using the symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to the bottom - the rise and fall of the Roman Empire - and this was the fall; the demise, the going down. (...) I went into the studio and said, 'Hey, look, I've read this thing. Let's do it!' We got the engineers and George Martin to hike up the drum sound and really get it as loud and horrible as it could and we played it and said, 'No, it still sounds too safe, it's got to get louder and dirtier.' We tried everything we could to dirty it up and in the end you can hear Ringo say, 'I've got blisters on my fingers.' That wasn't a joke put-on: his hands were actually bleeding at the end of the take, he'd been drumming so ferociously. We did work very hard on that track.

And then a crazy cultist serial killer felt inspired to some gruesome murders, which is another gruesome crazy story. But like Pollack said, it's a disturbing bit of music even without the Charles Manson connection. And exactly what I hear in my inner ear when thinking about American politics.

What's really out of this world is that within the same album and in the same time frame, Paul also wrote this adorable bit of utter fluff, an ode to his dog Martha, which is the cheer I need to deal with real life right now.



Martha background story from the horse's mouth: Martha was my first ever pet. I never had a dog or a cat at home. My parents both went out to work, which was why we couldn't have any, even when one terrible day they were giving away free puppies! Just a hundred yards away from where we lived. We came screaming home, my brother and I, 'They're giving 'em away! We can get one if you tell us now, we can go and get one, we've chosen the one we want!' They said, 'You can't have one, son. Me and your mum go out to work and it wouldn't be fair on a dog.' 'We'll look after it, we'll do it.' 'You're at school.' 'Well, we'll come back at lunchtime. Surely?' 'No, no, no.' Crying crying crying. We just couldn't understand because they were free! We could understand not buying one because we weren't that well off, but passing up a freebie puppy! He was quite firm about stuff like that and I suppose he was right.(...)So Martha was a dear pet of mine. I remember John being amazed to see me being so loving to an animal. He said, "I've never seen you like that before." I've since thought, you know, he wouldn't have. It's only when you're cuddling around with a dog that you're in that mode, and she was a very cuddly dog.'