Month: August 2010

Restoring Sanity

~ lobablanca

There’s definitely something rotten in Denmark, denizens. But don’t say that to these TEA baggers. They’ll start lecturing you about how Denmark is one of those evil Socialist countries. And Socialism starts with an S…just like Satan. Who is obviously Obama, because he is trying to turn America into a Socialist country by wanting things like universal health care so that American families don’t go through the horrors like my family has gone through at the hands of Capitalist doctors who, when they no longer saw the profit in treating my mother, sent her home with the instructions to my father that he should “let nature take its course.”

Obviously, this is a touchy subject for me. But I think it should be a touchy subject for anyone possessing even a shred of reason. Think about what happened here in D.C., denizens. On the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, we witnessed what could quite possibly be considered a nail in the coffin of that dream. And I’m speaking about both rallies, which were each divisive in their own ways. Beck and his predominantly White followers versus Al Sharpton and his slightly more diverse but still predominantly Black opposing rally (and neither side seeming to get the sad irony of the situation at all). How could anyone look at these events and for an instant believe that King’s dream could be anything but close to DOA at the feet of Abraham Lincoln’s monument? His vision was for a blending of colors, a coming together of beliefs, opinions, ideas. Judge me on the content of my character, not the color of my skin.

Somewhere along the way, we became incredibly derailed.

Beyond the issues of race, however, is the offensiveness of the wording of Beck’s clarion call to his brainwashed masses. Restore America. Restore Honor. Turn America back toward God.

What does all of this mean? Making certain that you’re allowed to continue to make second-class citizens of fellow Americans for the “crime” of not conforming to the questionably translated beliefs of your unproven god? Or that you be allowed to deny something as basic and deserved as good health to those who cannot afford it…not because they’re not trying but because they can’t find the work they need to give them access to health care. And why is that? Because politicians have unilaterally, and in many instances bipartisanly, sold out the American blue-collar worker by allowing corporations to outsource jobs to the lowest bidder. Whatever it takes to make sure they win the most at playing this Capitalist game, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Damn the blue-collar workers as well.

So stand around like little sheep, spewing your Beck-prepared and Palin-approved jingo dingo lingo while wearing your Communist Chinese-made American flag shirts and hats and fanny packs, waving your Communist Chinese-made American flags, sitting in your Communist Chinese-made American flag folding chairs (but keep damning Cuba for its evil, evil Communist ways!). Wrap yourself in Old Glory and hide your true purpose behind the stacks of dead soldiers you conjure in your liturgy, never once mentioning the erroneous and debatably felonious war (started by your last president to hold office…you know, the same president that drop-kicked us into the middle of this ever-widening sea of debt with his “fiscal conservative” spending sprees and his unending wars) for which they were killed. Stand up and spout the Pledge of Allegiance when the lemming call comes for you to do so.

Never mind that the pledge was written by a self-acclaimed Christian Socialist. See? There’s that evil “S” word again. The pledge’s author, Francis Bellamy, believed that the tenets of Christianity and Socialism were interrelated philosophies. I wonder how long Bellamy could have stood on stage at yesterday’s rally before Dreck’s…sorry, I mean Beck’s bleating hordes booed him off.

I bet they would be more forgiving of Bellamy, however, if they were allowed to do his original salute for the pledge. The original salute wasn’t placing your hand over your heart. It was instead quite similar to what would soon enough become famous as the Nazi salute. Ironic, isn’t it? Okay, probably not. It’s all good, though, just as long as you slap in “under God” thanks to all that jingoistic McCarthy panic of the 1950s. And click your heels together while you say it. Then you’ll be back home in your Communist Chinese-made Republican utopia.

I wish I could give this more thought. Wait. No, I don’t. I still don’t quite understand what has happened to us as a country. But I must admit that I am losing a great deal of respect and hope for us all. And it has nothing to do with restoring honor, whatever on earth that is code for this time. It’s about my continued wish for restoring intelligence, reason, and integrity, traits that have become almost completely extinct on both sides of the fence, both among the politicians and the people.

It’s been a very long time since I felt anything more than apathetic disdain toward the downward spiral of stupidity being propagated in this country. I have to say, though, that this rally has sparked within me a great deal of anger and disgust. And fear. Fear that we are locked into goose-stepping toward utter brainless chaos, led to the slaughter by our emotions since it’s obvious that we sacrificed our intelligence a long, long time ago. Does anyone else feel the same as I do? Could there possibly be as many people as me, as equally upset and afraid at how easily we as a country can be manipulated by those who have motives far more sinister and ulterior than the patriotic pabulum that they spoon-feed their followers? What if we all got together and rallied in Washington? Could we make a difference?

BookBin2010: War on the Margins

~ lobablanca

Something quite serendipitous occurred thanks to my review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I received an e-mail from Libby Cone, a radiologist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who happened to have published a book similar in scope to Shaffer and Barrows’ book. Cone’s book, War On the Margins, also dealt with the Nazi Occupation of the English Channel Islands, this time focusing on the residents of Jersey rather than Guernsey. She asked if I would be interested in reading her manuscript and posting a review, whether good or bad, here at the lair.

Of course, as I stated in my review of Shaffer and Barrows’ book, I was slightly embarrassed by the fact that I had never heard anything about this particular aspect of World War II, never had any clue that the Nazis had ever gotten so close to England as to actually occupy the islands in the English Channel. So I was very interested in reading Cone’s account of this historical event.

War on the Margins, although in some ways a companion piece to Shaffer and Barrows’ book, is quite different in approach. Whereas the previous book has a certain degree of whimsy (as one would expect from a book with such a whimsical name), Cone’s novel is austere in its approach to its subject matter. Perhaps it is because I am naturally drawn to darker and more severe tones, I think I preferred this approach slightly more than Shaffer and Barrows’ book. While I think that embracing a certain degree of whimsy helps to make difficult topics a bit more palatable, I also think that there are some things, particularly those things that are entrenched in the more horrific truths of our global history, that shouldn’t be sugar-coated.

Cone presents her story directly, providing very little padding to protect us from the events that transpire within her book. I did find that the writing style was a bit…institutional. However, I realized once I was finished and reading the acknowledgments toward the end of the book that this actually grew from Cone’s thesis for a master’s degree in Jewish Studies from Gratz College. Although the text has obviously been massaged to sound more like a literary work rather than a scholastic work, it still reads very much like a thesis in many ways.

Another thing that I didn’t realize until the end of the novel was the fact that many “characters” throughout the story were real people. For example, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, two of the protagonists, were real people. Their love was real, their resistance was real, and what they endured at the hands of the Gestapo was real as well. To be honest, I think this information should have appeared toward the front rather than the back of the book. Knowing that Lucy and Suzanne were real made their stories so much more impactful.

Regardless, however, this is a strong novel, replete with a mostly healthy balance of historical information as well as personal accounts of what the residents of Jersey survived at the hands of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands. I do believe that it is still predominantly an academic effort (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely something to keep in mind if you are tempted to approach from a purely fiction viewpoint), but I also think that it’s a strong historical offering about people and an event that time should not forget.

Final Verdict: I’m very glad that Libby Cone contacted me with her manuscript. I found this to be another enlightening glimpse into a bit of world history that I only recently discovered. I will be keeping this manuscript as part of my collection.

Flashback Friday: The Carol Burnett Show

~ lobablanca
I'm so glad we had this time together...

Running on CBS from 1967 to 1978, The Carol Burnett Show was a wee bit before my time (well, except for those two seasons I watched from my playpen with my Clifford the Big Red Dog).

Thank the prophets for reruns. Every weekday evening on TBS (and, of course, after my homework was finished), I had the opportunity to laugh myself into oblivion at the genius comedy antics of Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, and Vicki Lawrence (sometimes the reruns that I saw would feature Lyle Waggoner, but I don’t think I ever saw the season that had Dick Van Dyke in it). More than just a comedy variety show, Burnett and her cast mates were amazingly adept at tapping into popular culture and lampooning it with inimitable style. Nothing was safe as they burned through spoofs of television, movies, commercials, music…anything was fair game.

My favorite part of the show, however, wasn’t necessarily the proper, rehearsed routines. Oh no. I loved the mistakes. The goofs and gaffs that typically would find their way onto show blooper reels, but with Burnett’s shows, they sometimes made their way on air. Why? Because they were hilarious. Sometimes even funnier than the “correct” skits. I’ve found a couple on YouTube along with a longer blooper reel. Surprisingly, YouTube has quite a few clips from The Carol Burnett Show, which I think is really cool. It also makes up for the fact that the show hasn’t been released in its entirety on DVD. Yet.

Burnett attempted to revive her variety show back in 1991, this time on NBC. Unfortunately, the era of variety shows had long since passed. It’s quite a shame, though. I remember this new show being funny. Not quite as good as her original run, but still able to provide solid laughs. Like the following skit, which of course would appeal to me. Not only is it a spoof of Star Trek, but it features Andrea Martin, who would later go on to play Quark’s mom on DS9. What is there not to love about this?

The Face of Modern Sedition

~ lobablanca

SEDITION: Incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.

During a recent visit to see my father, we had an interesting conversation concerning politics (as we are wont to do; I don’t think I’ve ever had a prolonged conversation with him in which politics didn’t become part of the discussion). He pointed out something concerning recent attitudes within the Republican party, especially these darned TEA baggers, that he believes is cause for concern. It’s one of those “those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it” scenarios that he believes isn’t being taken as seriously as it should be taken, especially by the politicians in power right now.

He reminded me about my own country’s history (which I admittedly don’t pay as much attention to as I should) by pointing out that one of the leading instigators behind the American Civil War was Abraham Lincoln’s election as president. Before Lincoln was even sworn in, 11 Southern states declared they were seceding from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. Outgoing president James Buchanan and Lincoln both declared this secession to be a rebellion.

Sedition.

That moment in our history led to the pitting of American against American, and ended with more than 600,000 dead and more than 400,000 wounded. Hard to believe that fewer than 200 years ago, we were “refreshing the tree of liberty” with the blood of our own.

Ah, there’s a frightening quote being bantered about by Republicans. Back in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

[Loba Tangent: I wonder how these “Moral Majority” Christian conservatives within the Republican party feel about Jefferson’s stance on religion. He is, after all, the same person who wrote things like, “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear,” and “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” Ooh, or how about this one: “If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market.”]

So we have people like William Kostric, the gentleman pictured to the right. In 2009, he attended a protest outside a town hall meeting on health care reform in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He carried a sign that read “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” In the center of this sign is visible the snake graphic from the Gadsden flag, which stated beneath the snake, “Don’t Tread On Me.” Kostric had a loaded 9mm gun visibly strapped to his leg. President Obama was in attendance at this meeting.

When interviewed by Chris Matthews, Kostric didn’t think it was “a relevant question” to be asked why he brought a loaded gun to a presidential meeting. I’m not going to post a link to this interview, because I honestly found Matthews’ combative interviewing style to be appalling, but I do find Kostric’s response disturbing. As a former student of literary analysis, I was taught to look for meaning in many forms, including symbolism. And I have to say, there is pretty clear meaning in the image of someone strapped with weaponry holding a sign about watering the tree of liberty (especially knowing how that quote ends in bloodshed), standing outside a location where the President of the United States is in attendance.

Regardless of what I think of Obama as President, I find this kind of behavior frightening. I find the feigned innocence, like Kostric’s comment that Matthews was asking irrelevant questions about his gun-toting antics, to be even more frightening.

Especially when similar sentiments surface in the speeches of people running for political positions. People like Sharron Angle. I’ve been keeping tabs on her for a while. She is a TEA Bagger currently trying to unseat Harry Reid as one of Nevada’s U.S. Senators. She’s said some pretty…interesting things throughout her run for Reid’s seat.

Things like she’d like to see the complete elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Or that the separation of church and state is unconstitutional. Or that unemployment benefits have spoiled Americans from wanting to go and find real work (although she’s also on record as stating that it would not be her responsibility as a U.S. Senator to bring jobs to Nevada, which currently is the state with the highest unemployment rate, at more than 14 percent).

However, it’s her stance on the Second Amendment of the Constitution that worries me the most. During an interview with Lars Larson, Angle is quoted as saying the following:

Our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. In fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.

Second Amendment remedies? It’s time to water the tree of liberty?

I don’t care how much Angle backpedals regarding her Second Amendment remedies. I don’t care how irrelevant Kostric thinks Matthews’ questions about him toting a loaded weapon outside a presidential town hall meeting might be. Both of these people have put forward imagery and ideas that translate to one thing: armed uprising against the government. Bloodshed.

Sedition.

Am I reading too much into these instances? I don’t think so. I think these things were said or performed in the hopes that people would analyze them and find meaning in the inferences. Do I think there are enough people in this country willing to answer the call for an uprising? I honestly don’t know anymore. I recently read a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on a group that calls itself the “Sovereign Citizens.” Begun back in the 1970s, now more than 300,000 people claim to be members. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Sovereign Citizens movement is:

…a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to “restore” an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed. To this end, sovereign citizens wage war against the government and other forms of authority using “paper terrorism” harassment and intimidation tactics, and occasionally resorting to violence.

“Occasionally resorting to violence.” Such as when father and son Sovereign Citizens killed two police officers during a traffic stop in May of this year.

Perhaps this is the ultimate way to destroy America. Terrorists need do nothing more than sit back and watch us destroy ourselves. Seems like we’re already on the way there. I can only hope that reason is still strong enough to prevail. Admittedly, though, I’m really beginning to wonder…

Flashback Friday: Chevette

~ lobablanca

From the Angry BloggerTM archives:

With all love and respect to Sammy the Wonder Car, I wish I still had my very first car. Well, it wasn’t really mine. But it was the first car I drove. It was a 1980 Chevrolet Chevette. Metallic blue that was the same color as a Smurf…thus the nickname “SmurfMobile.” Dark blue vinyl seats that could fry the skin right off your ass if you were unfortunate enough not to find parking in the shade in the summertime. Rear wheel drive that fishtailed in a snowstorm like Moby Dick on speed. With four cylinders, 85 was its top speed (but only if you liked the feel of a car getting ready to vibrate apart beneath you).

We traveled everywhere in that car when I was a kid. Family vacation time came around and it was me, my first dog Bear, and the cooler, all on the backseat. The hatchback would be loaded as would be any other spare spot that could store a bag, a blanket, a pillow, or anything else. We drove to Florida every year in that car.

Ah, those were indeed the days. I saw huge swaths of the East Coast, from Maryland all the way to Miami, from the windows of that little blue Chevette, which looked very much like this:

I’m still amazed at the mechanical genius of my father, and how he kept that Chevette road-worthy for more than 20 years. Not just road-worthy, but able to make the circuitous vacation journey of often more than 2,000 miles every year.

He was even able to keep it up and running for the terror of my early driving years. I nearly ran him down with that little car while he was resetting the cones for my abysmal attempts at parallel parking. It wasn’t my fault, really. My foot slipped. My arms were tired. I thought I was in Drive rather than Reverse. Yadda, yadda, excuses, excuses.

[Loba Fun Fact: Parallel parking is actually one of the easiest things in the world to master. In a car with power steering. The Chevette lacked this simple feature, which meant A LOT of steering wheel turning. I think it might actually have been easier to just get out, pick the little fart knocker up, and place it down into the parallel spot. Gave me a sweet bit of arm muscle though.]

I did, indeed, learn how to drive in the Chevette. I learned the basics, learned how to drive in the the worst that an East Coast winter can dish out, learned that back roads are most awesome at night at 70 mph and that rear wheel drive is best for making donuts in the snow (also learned that some things shouldn’t be shared with parents until well past the age of adult independence and that your teenage years are the time to do things like these because courage and youthful stupidity both often go hand-in-hand and disappear with the passage of time).

The Chevette was also the official mascot car of my high school senior class. My friends and I zoomed up and down the roadways, going to games, heading to the mall, meeting up for weekend trips to Sizzler (ew…there’s a Flashback both I and my digestive system could do without ever having). I picked up more Little Caesar’s pizzas in that car to sell during lunch breaks than could feed an entire tailgate party at FedEx Field. I’m willing to bet, in fact, that wherever the Chevette is today, it still smells of pepperoni. I also once fit my entire senior class in the SmurfMobile (also lovingly dubbed the Blueberry NerdMobile). Of course, there were only eight of us, so maybe that’s not so impressive.

Even though it’s been more than a decade since my dad donated it (more than likely for scrap), I still not only carry around happy thoughts about our Chevette but also my set of keys, which still hang on the same rack as Sammy’s key. Now that’s love, I tell ya.

That little Chevette was by far one of the favorite parts of my childhood. It carried me to all the places I loved the most: to spend time with family and friends, to visit magical vacation destinations…even making sure that I got to high school and college classes so that I could move ever closer to that seemingly elusive-at-the-time finish line for dependence known as “adulthood.” It was a great little car that, by the time we released it to greener pastures, was jam-packed from bumper to bumper with happy memories born from the steady stroke of rubber on asphalt and the wind whipping through our hair.

Here’s a cute little spoof commercial for the Chevette that gives you some great shots of this little wonder car.

And this video is for my dad, who always wanted to drop a V6 into our Chevette for reasons that eluded me at the time. I get it now though.

Freedom to Breathe

~ lobablanca

Whilst visiting my dad and his siblings this weekend for a combined August birthday celebration, I saw the following poster hanging on the wall beside the kitchen telephone. It’s something that my dad found while he was sorting through some papers from my grandparents’ belongings.

Isn’t it the grooviest thing you’ve ever seen? Especially considering that it was printed by the Government Printing Office, which admittedly isn’t renowned for its awesome artistry. But this fairly screams “I was designed in the 60s!! I’m groovy and far out!”

Dig it, man. Dig it.

Her Morning Elegance

~ lobablanca

There’s a new meme that’s circulating through teh Interwebz. I’m not going to link to it or tell you anything more about it than it’s a parody song written as a “tribute” to a very famous science fiction author. All it really is, though, is someone being crude for the sake of being crude, in this wolf’s humble, whiny opinion. Yet another example of someone wasting their talent just for the shallow shock value of it all.

Needless to say, viewing this inferior meme has made me want to combat it with something far more pleasing. Something like this video for Oren Lavie’s song “Her Morning Elegance.” This is what clever, creative, and classy looks like. Hope you enjoy!

Fall of the Fourth Estate

~ lobablanca

What has become of journalistic integrity in this country?

There was a time when I couldn’t start my day without absorbing as much news as I possibly could. This was predominantly during my Angry BloggerTM days, although I continued to be a voracious news hound during that lull in between those blogging days and now.

I still read and listen to a great deal of news, but not with the same insatiable need. Truth is, I think that my distrust of media outlets has outpaced my desire to be in the know regarding transpiring newsworthy events. I hate that this is the case. I hate feeling uninformed. But I hate the feeling of being manipulated even more.

The distrust began a while ago, although I definitely think it came to a clanging, crashing crescendo during the 2008 presidential campaign. I continue to believe that the coverage of this campaign was offensively manipulative on many fronts, abandoning real news for editorialized irrelevance and pandering to the most inconsequential coverage because it was more entertaining.

Call me curmudgeonly (and I’m sure many of you will), but I don’t want to be entertained by my news. I want to be informed. But when you find that you have to go to personal blogs or Jon Stewart to locate the facts that are missing from mainstream media outlets, it becomes glaringly obvious that there’s something failing within the machine that might become irreparable if it’s not addressed soon.

But when did the machine first begin to fail?

I think the diagnosis is many-layered, but I believe that the problems first began to arise with the arrival of 24-hour news coverage channels like CNN and later MSNBC and Fox News. Here was an idea that had the potential to provide viewers with unencumbered access to the most up-to-date and thorough coverage of news as it happened. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Unfettered access to the truth!

What we got, instead, was a gradual blurring of the lines between honest news coverage and editorializing that has reached insulting levels. Don’t believe me? Turn on any of these round-the-clock news channels and see what’s playing. More than likely what you’re going to find is opinion rather than news. Even when actual journalists are present on some of these shows’ panels, they’re providing their opinions on matters on which they report for other outlets.

It’s reached a point at which we’re not even allowed to come to our own opinions. Prime recent example: News coverage of a local crime that occurred last week started with the news anchor sitting next to a graphic that stated, “Disgusting Act.”

True, the incident in question was quite disgusting. But I don’t need you to tell me that. I need you to provide me with the facts of the crime and let me make up my own mind. Period. That is, after all, your job. To report the news.

However, opinion has somehow cloaked itself convincingly enough that it now mingles with the sheep, whispering its distracting song into the minds of anyone willing to listen. Why? Because it’s being sung by a “news” outlet? Printed in a reputable newspaper?

Do such things even exist anymore? Perhaps, but I believe they are slowly being eradicated by the instant gratification demands of the online generation, combined with features like “Post a Comment,” which more often than not are nothing more than thinly veiled cesspools of racism, ignorance, and intolerance. With the “anonymous” function, most comment sections on news sites inevitably tend to devolve into the modern day equivalent of wearing a hood at a cross burning. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s a White face beneath the hood anymore. Anyone can be hateful! It’s as easy as the click of a mouse button!

It’s exhausting and frustrating and overwhelming all at once. And it’s not going to get any better. True, I know several journalists who strive to remain true to that mythological creature known as “journalistic integrity.” But they, too, seem slated for the inevitable march to extinction, replaced by sensationalism and emotionalism disguised as news.

I’m not naive enough to believe that journalists must be complete blank slates. I know that journalists have their own opinions, their own beliefs, follow their own convictions, and make up their own minds. But they shouldn’t be trying to make up my mind or anyone else’s. Report the news. Nothing more. Nothing less. And if you find that too difficult a beat to walk, perhaps you should consider switching to another line of work. I hear Sarah Palin is putting together her own discussion panel on Fox News…

Flashback Friday: Night Court

~ lobablanca

There are very few sitcoms from my childhood that I can tolerate today. I’m done with movin’ on up to the East Side. I don’t care what you would do without us, shalalala. I don’t want to take the good or take the bad, and quite frankly when you take them both, all you really have is a horribly cheesy sitcom to which time has most definitely been unmerciful.

But there’s something about Night Court. These characters of infinite flaws and infinite quirks provided endless laughs (most of which stemmed from jokes that I probably shouldn’t have understood at the age at which I was first watching the shows). It was one of those rare comedies in which character and actor merged so perfectly that you couldn’t imagine any other person ever playing the likes of Judge Harry Stone…Dan Fielding…Christine Sullivan…Mac…Bull…Roz.

Even early episodes from the first season that featured “limited edition” characters like Lana Wagner or Billie Young were ribald and hilarious. And then there were the pre-Marsha Warfield bailiffs, Selma and Florence, characters who lasted far too short a season before their actresses slipped their mortal coils. Rather than sweeping their deaths aside and staying the course of mindless comedy, the writers and the other actors faced each of these actresses’ passing with honesty, humor, and honor. I remember those being some of the most moving and finest offerings that television brought to my young world.

I adored this show, and continue to find it funny whenever I find it on television. Regardless of how obviously 80s it is, with Mac and his knit sweaters or Dan and his rampant sexual escapades and random references to things like the McDLT…or Christine and her glorious 80s frosted hair and obsession with Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s wedding, the writing remains sharp and satirical and extremely funny.

Then there’s Bob and June Wheeler. Perhaps the funniest recurring characters from the show’s run, they hold a special place in this Trekkie’s heart. Bob Wheeler was played by Brent Spiner, who would go on to play Lieutenant Commander Data, my second favorite character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, what most people probably don’t realize is that Bob’s wife June Wheeler also appeared in the Trek universe. Actress Annie O’Donnell portrayed Keena in the Deep Space Nine first season episode “Progress.” Even if it was only for one episode, she played a Bajoran, which means bonus geek awesome points in my book.

Before they reached space, the final frontier, however, here’s a clip of O’Donnell and Spiner in their first appearance as June and Bob Wheeler, those wacky West Virginian Yugoslavians with the worst luck to ever roll through Judge Stone’s night court.

BookBin2010: Section 31: Abyss

~ lobablanca

No, I didn’t read a novelization of the awesome James Cameron movie, The Abyss. This Abyss is the third book in the Deep Space Nine compendium, Twist of Faith, that I started reading last September. Remember how much I loved book one and book two of S.D. Perry’s Avatar?

This time the book wasn’t written by Perry. Instead, the story was done by Jeffrey Lang and David Weddle. Admittedly, I was a little spoiled by the powerful kickoff that Perry provided for the DS9 “eighth season” with her amazing two-parter, but I was willing to give this third book a shot (especially considering the fact that it’s part of this collection that I’m obviously keeping if only for Perry’s novels).

The problems I had with Abyss right from the start were two-fold: 1) the story focuses on Section 31, which was one of my least favorite additions to the Star Trek mythology; and 2) the book focuses on Julian Bashir. When I first watched DS9, I hated his character. That hatred has mellowed considerably throughout the years and, if anything, is now a tepid acceptance with mild spikes of “like.” However, combine both these issues and you’re really not starting out on a positive note with me regarding your tale.

I should point out here that this novel was part of a four-book Section 31 story arc that ranged from the original Star Trek to The Next Generation, this DS9 story, and finally Voyager.

Knowing that this was one part of a four-part story, I was a little worried that I wouldn’t understand what was going on in my part of the arc (but not worried enough that I ever considered buying the other three novels; again, I really don’t like Section 31). However, Abyss worked perfectly as a stand-alone story. If there was anything missing, I couldn’t tell. This book does tie in with events that took place in Avatar, as it should. Lang and Weddle did a great job, in fact, of connecting their story to Perry’s novels, picking up nuances and threads throughout. I very much enjoyed these aspects of the novel. There were also some great character development moments that were worth the effort to find as well. One of the greatest joys of all these eighth season DS9 books thus far has been the care and quality the authors have invested into character development. The DS9 crew is being handled in ways almost more impressive than they were on the actual show.

Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm over the actual Section 31 story, I still enjoyed reading this novel. If you did like Section 31, then you’ll probably enjoy it even more. It’s a well told tale with wonderful character moments scattered throughout. I’m still very much enjoying what they’re doing with Ezri Dax. There were equally intriguing moments concerning Ro Laren as well as a plot point concerning Colonel Kira that was kicked into motion by the events of Avatar and has left her quite vulnerable to those who do not wish to see her continue as commander of Deep Space Nine.

I’m very glad there’s still another book to go in this compilation (along with a short story), because I don’t want my time with the eighth season to come to a halt just yet. If things keep running at the impressive pace of the first three books, I will definitely be continuing with the next batch of novels in this series.

Final Verdict: Really now…what do you think I’m going to do with this book? 😉