"I told you it was Daleks."
"I never doubted it."
The Doctor, Rose, and Jack are kidnapped off the TARDIS and stuck in futuristic version of what I later learned are contemporary reality and game shows. Some fans have expressed skepticism that this episode would hold up with people who weren't familiar with those shows. I wasn't, and I still got enough of the jokes to laugh at it. They bust out of their respective TV hells and we find ourselves back on the TV station satelight to meet it's real Masters, the Daleks. Then it's round up the troops and mount a defense, now we know why the London Blitz was brought up earlier.
Jack organizes a defense by some of the remaining humans, which ultimately fails but still buys some valuable time. The Doctor has a bad idea. Rose has two bad ideas. Between them and Jack's forces, the Daleks are defeated but the Doctor is forced to regenerate. A lyrical ending to a beautiful series.
There were many feel-good and teary-eyed moments, but the one that hit me like a sledgehammer didn't involve any of the main characters. It was the fate of the extras who were trapped on the space station with a Dalek invasion coming at them. Some of them went to fight the Daleks, knowing they were going to their deaths, while some of them hid and hoped they would be spared. You know what? They all died at about the same time. But some of them DID something with their deaths, even if it was only buy a few minutes time.
Watching that, all of a sudden I'm a teenager again. I'm different from other people around me, and they're trying to force me to change into someone who isn't me. Violent threats are made against me. I'm terrified. I'm convinced that someday soon someone is going to kill me. Looking back my fear was overblown, but it didn't seem that way at the time.
Then one day I realized that there was one thing "they" could NOT do. While "they" could line me up against a wall and shoot me whenever "they" felt like it, only I could decide if I would be cowering at the foot of that wall or standing on my feet staring back at them when it happened. I owned my death. It was a golden coin even my murderers would not be able to take it away from me. Once I realized that, I realized I owned my life as well. I grew up a lot that day, but that is another story.
This is a theme that echoes throughout this entire season. "The ordinary man is the most important thing in the universe" because at any moment the ordinary man might decide to become a hero or a villain. Everybody has a chance to be a hero, no matter who they are or what they do. Everybody is a hero everytime they help the people around them. "Go on," the Doctor tells a young thief stealing food for her children at one point. "Run along and save the world." And she does. So do servants, writers, reporters, doctors, con men, soldiers, and shop girls. Even a tow truck driver named Rodrigo gets to help save the world although we never see him and he'll never know it. But he helped someone who needed help, and that's what saving the world is all about. The world is saved every day by thousands of "ordinary" people who help each other and do the right thing. Without those people doing what they do each and every day, the world would never make it to sundown.
That's not to put down the "professional" heroes, but I'll get to them in my summary post. Then it's back to talking about schooling.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
2005 Dr. Who First Season: Boom Town
More consequences of the Doctor's actions are explored here in questions the original series never asked.
The story opens back in Cardiff, which thanks to the events in "The Unquiet Dead" can now be used as a TARDIS fuel depot. I thought that was a loveley way of thanking the production team's hometown. Mickey comes to visit Rose, who has evidently had quite a few adventures with the Doctor and Jack since the last episode. The crew on board the TARDIS is tight and giddy with shared victories, and Mickey feels very much the outsider.
I enjoyed seeing the Doctor flirting again, this time with Jack. It's a shame our oversexed mainstream culture has forgotten so many of the old rules. Here's one about flirting: flirting can either be a prelude to sex or a replacement for sex. In the latter case it comes from two people realizing that flirting is as close to sex as they care to get, so why not kick back and enjoy it? It's much more bearable than the modern equivalent, the dreaded "can't we just be friends?" line.
The fact that the Doctor flirts with Jabe and Jack says nothing about his level of sexual activity. Some of history's greatest flirts have been celibate, the theory was that it provided them a release valve. I'm greatly releived to see the Doctor flirting for just that reason.
On the other hand it says nothing about his lack of sexual activity, but Rose wouldn't understand and that crew is too tiny to weather that level of emotional tension. Not that this will slow down most of the slash fans.
Margaret the Slitheen is back trying to blow up the world again. The crew catches her, but while they're topping off the fuel tank she takes the opportunity to plead for mercy from the Doctor over dinner. Unfortunately she doesn't understand how to do it. You can feel the Doctor rooting for her, "Come on Margaret! Let's have some genuine remorse, atonement, restitution. Convince me you really will turn your life around if I let you go!" Alas, she fails to offer any real recompense for her deeds, and the Doctor is left to take her back home to her execuation.
The story opens back in Cardiff, which thanks to the events in "The Unquiet Dead" can now be used as a TARDIS fuel depot. I thought that was a loveley way of thanking the production team's hometown. Mickey comes to visit Rose, who has evidently had quite a few adventures with the Doctor and Jack since the last episode. The crew on board the TARDIS is tight and giddy with shared victories, and Mickey feels very much the outsider.
I enjoyed seeing the Doctor flirting again, this time with Jack. It's a shame our oversexed mainstream culture has forgotten so many of the old rules. Here's one about flirting: flirting can either be a prelude to sex or a replacement for sex. In the latter case it comes from two people realizing that flirting is as close to sex as they care to get, so why not kick back and enjoy it? It's much more bearable than the modern equivalent, the dreaded "can't we just be friends?" line.
The fact that the Doctor flirts with Jabe and Jack says nothing about his level of sexual activity. Some of history's greatest flirts have been celibate, the theory was that it provided them a release valve. I'm greatly releived to see the Doctor flirting for just that reason.
On the other hand it says nothing about his lack of sexual activity, but Rose wouldn't understand and that crew is too tiny to weather that level of emotional tension. Not that this will slow down most of the slash fans.
Margaret the Slitheen is back trying to blow up the world again. The crew catches her, but while they're topping off the fuel tank she takes the opportunity to plead for mercy from the Doctor over dinner. Unfortunately she doesn't understand how to do it. You can feel the Doctor rooting for her, "Come on Margaret! Let's have some genuine remorse, atonement, restitution. Convince me you really will turn your life around if I let you go!" Alas, she fails to offer any real recompense for her deeds, and the Doctor is left to take her back home to her execuation.
BZZZTT! The "overused meme" buzzer goes off again, this time on pregnant brides. So far we've had Jackie and Sara in "Father's Day" and now another one here. Doesn't anybody in Britain marry without getting knocked up first? Throw in the unwed teenage mother from the last story, and you've got way too many out-of-wedlock pregnancies for one season.
Meanwhile, Rose and Mickey are having a date. Mickey is having a hard time dealing with being in effect a sailor's girlfriend. It's a completely different life from anything he's known before, and he doesn't know how to handle it. I once heard a woman whose family has been military since the 14th Century talk about how difficult it is for "outsiders" to adapt to that lifestyle. I can sympathize with Mickey's plight.
Then Margaret's backup plan kicks in, and the TARDIS itself has to save the day. That wouldn't have happened in the original series, but it does follow up on hints that the TARDIS has been growing in sapience over time.
Overall, I really liked the way this episode served as an anchor to keep Dr. Who grounded in reality. Science fiction needs that sort of grounding to keep you caring about what happens next.
2005 Dr. Who First Season: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
It's amazing how many of the best Dr. Who stories ever are in this one season.
Twenty seconds into this episode and we know we're in the hands of a wonderfully witty comedy-action writer.
Two minutes into this episode and we know it's the "let's make fun of American TV & Film" episode. No problem there. That's a genre that needs skewering.
An alien ship has sent out a distress call and crashed in London. Should be easy to find, right? Just ask about the thing that fell from the sky and find the big crater. Pity it's during the height of the London Blitz. The scene where the Doctor inadvertently becomes a stand-up comedian by asking those questions right before the air-raid siren sounds in priceless.
Once again they drive home the message that in spite of being from an insanely advanced alien culture the Doctor is a people person, not a techie person. Hmmm, there would be an interesting meeting. Can you see the Doctor and McCoy swapping tales over mint juleps?
Now we get the additional message that in spite of being an adventurous sort of guy, the Doctor isn't a stereotypical action-adventure hero. That role goes to our new cast member Captain Jack Harkness, as perfect a throwback to the Golden Age of Hollywood as you're likely to find, only updated for the 21st Century. It's wonderful to see another old favorite tastefully modernized in this way.
Haha! Hello Jack-me-boy, I know your Daddy! Your spiritual Daddy at least.
For those of you who missed the glory days of independent comic books, Donna Barr's award-winning The Desert Peach focused on a bunch of people who picked the wrong time to be born German. They ended up fighting in the German military during World War II. None of them were ideological Nazis, many were from groups the Nazis loathed, but there they were trying to stay alive and off the radar of both the Allies and their own increasingly out-of-control government. I highly recommend it to anyone who is not childish.
One of the most memorable characters is Luftwaffe Oberleutnant "Rosen Kavalier" (Yes, it is a made up name. You wanna make something of it?) Physically he looks exactly like Captain Jack: the face, the jaw, the cheekbones, the hair, the build. He wears a black leather World War II combat pilot's uniform, the most important part is a fancy oversized watch on it's black leather strap. He's a cocky, charming, insanely courageous, bisexual, amoral, suave, thrill-seeking, promiscuous combat pilot who becomes a con man after leaving the military, and who grows up a lot after falling in love with an honorable and much older man. Captain Jack is so much like a kinder, gentler version of Rosen, it's astonishing.
Back to this story. Something apparently connected with the crashed ship is turning people into gasmask wearing zombies. BZZZTTT! That's the "overused meme" buzzer going off. We now have three different zombie stories in the first season, and the limit is one zombie story. Yes they're all wonderful, but one of the producers should have put his or her foot down all the same. And they're not even a satire on people who don't think, so they don't even have that excuse.
The Doctor investigates and is told to consult "the Doctor", a character whose story obviously parallels on our Doctor's own story. "Once I had children and grandchildren. Then the way came. Now I have nothing left but my work taking care of others." There are hints as well that the Time War paralleled Britain's experience in World War II without the American cavalry coming over the hill, including a lovely "it's always darkest before the dawn" speech that doesn't say "it's always darkest before the dawn".
The parallels point out something else about Dr. Who. In spite of all the efforts to describe him as alien, he's not. He's very foreign, he's haunted by baggage both known and unknown, but at no point in his entire existence has he ever seemed alien to me. He's the "stranger in a strange land."
Speaking of parallels, Jack is also a former "Time Agent". What's that? Did some sort of "Time Agency" step in to fill the void left by the extinction of the Time Lords and solve the problems mentioned in the last episode? If so who's running it? I get a delicious but highly improbably image of a future Doctor as Jack's ultimate boss, then after Jack mentions his little amnesia problem a delicious and only slightly less improbable image of the Master in that role. And how many "Time Agents" are there anyway? Jack's apparently run this same con a lot, but in order to completely snooker a new one each time there would have to be hundreds of agents not cross-checking with each other.
I could go on about the Doctor's witty banter with Jack and Rose in the second half, but that's been over-covered already. I will point out that this story is a companion piece with "Father's Day". In "Father's Day" it's a Daddy who saves the world, here it's a Mummy who saves the world. It continues the season's excellent theme that it's ordinary heroes -- doctors, reporters, Moms and Dads -- who save the world every day. Which isn't to say you don't need a "professional" from time to time, but without all those "amateur" heroes taking care of people on a daily basis the world wouldn't last until sundown.
Twenty seconds into this episode and we know we're in the hands of a wonderfully witty comedy-action writer.
Two minutes into this episode and we know it's the "let's make fun of American TV & Film" episode. No problem there. That's a genre that needs skewering.
An alien ship has sent out a distress call and crashed in London. Should be easy to find, right? Just ask about the thing that fell from the sky and find the big crater. Pity it's during the height of the London Blitz. The scene where the Doctor inadvertently becomes a stand-up comedian by asking those questions right before the air-raid siren sounds in priceless.
Once again they drive home the message that in spite of being from an insanely advanced alien culture the Doctor is a people person, not a techie person. Hmmm, there would be an interesting meeting. Can you see the Doctor and McCoy swapping tales over mint juleps?
Now we get the additional message that in spite of being an adventurous sort of guy, the Doctor isn't a stereotypical action-adventure hero. That role goes to our new cast member Captain Jack Harkness, as perfect a throwback to the Golden Age of Hollywood as you're likely to find, only updated for the 21st Century. It's wonderful to see another old favorite tastefully modernized in this way.
Haha! Hello Jack-me-boy, I know your Daddy! Your spiritual Daddy at least.
For those of you who missed the glory days of independent comic books, Donna Barr's award-winning The Desert Peach focused on a bunch of people who picked the wrong time to be born German. They ended up fighting in the German military during World War II. None of them were ideological Nazis, many were from groups the Nazis loathed, but there they were trying to stay alive and off the radar of both the Allies and their own increasingly out-of-control government. I highly recommend it to anyone who is not childish.
One of the most memorable characters is Luftwaffe Oberleutnant "Rosen Kavalier" (Yes, it is a made up name. You wanna make something of it?) Physically he looks exactly like Captain Jack: the face, the jaw, the cheekbones, the hair, the build. He wears a black leather World War II combat pilot's uniform, the most important part is a fancy oversized watch on it's black leather strap. He's a cocky, charming, insanely courageous, bisexual, amoral, suave, thrill-seeking, promiscuous combat pilot who becomes a con man after leaving the military, and who grows up a lot after falling in love with an honorable and much older man. Captain Jack is so much like a kinder, gentler version of Rosen, it's astonishing.
Back to this story. Something apparently connected with the crashed ship is turning people into gasmask wearing zombies. BZZZTTT! That's the "overused meme" buzzer going off. We now have three different zombie stories in the first season, and the limit is one zombie story. Yes they're all wonderful, but one of the producers should have put his or her foot down all the same. And they're not even a satire on people who don't think, so they don't even have that excuse.
The Doctor investigates and is told to consult "the Doctor", a character whose story obviously parallels on our Doctor's own story. "Once I had children and grandchildren. Then the way came. Now I have nothing left but my work taking care of others." There are hints as well that the Time War paralleled Britain's experience in World War II without the American cavalry coming over the hill, including a lovely "it's always darkest before the dawn" speech that doesn't say "it's always darkest before the dawn".
The parallels point out something else about Dr. Who. In spite of all the efforts to describe him as alien, he's not. He's very foreign, he's haunted by baggage both known and unknown, but at no point in his entire existence has he ever seemed alien to me. He's the "stranger in a strange land."
Speaking of parallels, Jack is also a former "Time Agent". What's that? Did some sort of "Time Agency" step in to fill the void left by the extinction of the Time Lords and solve the problems mentioned in the last episode? If so who's running it? I get a delicious but highly improbably image of a future Doctor as Jack's ultimate boss, then after Jack mentions his little amnesia problem a delicious and only slightly less improbable image of the Master in that role. And how many "Time Agents" are there anyway? Jack's apparently run this same con a lot, but in order to completely snooker a new one each time there would have to be hundreds of agents not cross-checking with each other.
I could go on about the Doctor's witty banter with Jack and Rose in the second half, but that's been over-covered already. I will point out that this story is a companion piece with "Father's Day". In "Father's Day" it's a Daddy who saves the world, here it's a Mummy who saves the world. It continues the season's excellent theme that it's ordinary heroes -- doctors, reporters, Moms and Dads -- who save the world every day. Which isn't to say you don't need a "professional" from time to time, but without all those "amateur" heroes taking care of people on a daily basis the world wouldn't last until sundown.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
2005 Dr. Who First Season: Father's Day
Oh.
Goodness.
Here's a story Dr. Who fans have waited decades to see. The Doctor warned us back us back in the early 80s that when time travelers tried to change their own personal histories, Very Bad Things happened. Bad Things that even a renegade Time Lord didn't want to mess with. So what kind of Bad Things were they?
Now we know.
Eccleston's tight-lipped "say nothing more than is necessary" Doctor is the real culprit here. Bad enough he can't even bring himself to tell her the name of his people's planet, here his failure to go over the basic safety rules of meeting yourself in the past and his willingness to bring three Roses to the same time set up an event that threatens all existence.
Rose's father died when she was a baby. She wants to go back in time to see him, and thanks to the Doctor's failure to explain the rules about this sort of thing, ends up saving his life in such a way that it causes a rift in time. This rift allows the Very Bad Things to come through, and they are Very Bad indeed. The Doctor tries some fancy moves to save everybody and fails. Rose's Dad tries a simple move, and sacrifices himself to save everyone else.
When the Doctor explained to Rose that "his people" used to prevent this sort of thing but now they're gone, I felt my first touch of fear. So who's protecting the time stream now? And what will happen if nobody is?
It's a simple, beautiful episode, with incredible acting. I was crying by the end of it. The current season seems to have a theme running through it that everyone has the potential within themselves to be a hero, if they would just reach inside past all the banalities of their day-to-day world and find their true strength. The Doctor happens to be very good at enabling other people to realize this truth. In the course of trying to get this message across the story has the Doctor getting saved by other people a lot, but I can put up with a lot to hear one of my favorite messages getting out. Besides, it makes the stories more interesting when you get to guess exactly which person (or what combination of people) is going to save the world this time. Ensemble shows are so much livelier that way, and for the first time since the 60s Dr. Who is starting to look like an ensemble show.
Goodness.
Here's a story Dr. Who fans have waited decades to see. The Doctor warned us back us back in the early 80s that when time travelers tried to change their own personal histories, Very Bad Things happened. Bad Things that even a renegade Time Lord didn't want to mess with. So what kind of Bad Things were they?
Now we know.
Eccleston's tight-lipped "say nothing more than is necessary" Doctor is the real culprit here. Bad enough he can't even bring himself to tell her the name of his people's planet, here his failure to go over the basic safety rules of meeting yourself in the past and his willingness to bring three Roses to the same time set up an event that threatens all existence.
Rose's father died when she was a baby. She wants to go back in time to see him, and thanks to the Doctor's failure to explain the rules about this sort of thing, ends up saving his life in such a way that it causes a rift in time. This rift allows the Very Bad Things to come through, and they are Very Bad indeed. The Doctor tries some fancy moves to save everybody and fails. Rose's Dad tries a simple move, and sacrifices himself to save everyone else.
When the Doctor explained to Rose that "his people" used to prevent this sort of thing but now they're gone, I felt my first touch of fear. So who's protecting the time stream now? And what will happen if nobody is?
It's a simple, beautiful episode, with incredible acting. I was crying by the end of it. The current season seems to have a theme running through it that everyone has the potential within themselves to be a hero, if they would just reach inside past all the banalities of their day-to-day world and find their true strength. The Doctor happens to be very good at enabling other people to realize this truth. In the course of trying to get this message across the story has the Doctor getting saved by other people a lot, but I can put up with a lot to hear one of my favorite messages getting out. Besides, it makes the stories more interesting when you get to guess exactly which person (or what combination of people) is going to save the world this time. Ensemble shows are so much livelier that way, and for the first time since the 60s Dr. Who is starting to look like an ensemble show.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
2005 Dr. Who First Season: The Long Game
I dub this episode the Most Annoying Episode of the Season. Doesn't sink to the depths plumbed by the "Aliens of London" two-parter, but doesn't soar to the heights of that story either. And what's up with Adam?
The Doctor shows off what his TARDIS can do to Adam the New Kid by landing them in the far future, at a time when human civilization is at its height. But something's gone wrong. Someone is holding humans back by controlling and manipulating the news. Nothing wrong with that storyline at all, it's wonderful and timely. But there's a McGuffin in our tale and the Doctor fell for it.
The Thing allegedly holding humanity back is a Big Ugly Monster who lives on the ceiling of the news control nexus. But what does it DO up there? It doesn't need to kill people or give orders, both of those can be accomplished by its human attendants. It was installed by "a consortium of banks" who are it's backers. Yes, the Doctor and his team manage to kill it, think they've done something really great, and ride off into the sunset; leaving their newfound friends going "But, but, but...." and me screaming, "It's a STOOGE you great big idiot! It's a ceiling-sized fall guy! How could you be stupid enough to fall for that?" It would have worked in the 1960s but by 2005 we know the real sinister enemy is that "consortium of banks" and whoever or whatever is behind THEM.
The performances of the guest stars are first-rate, but most of the interesting bits came in Adam's subplots. We learn (and old fans are reminded) that in spite of being from a civilization with an insanely advanced technology the Doctor isn't a techie kind of guy. Given a choice between talking to a machine or talking to a person, he'll go out of his way to talk to a person.
Adam demonstrates that not everyone is cut out to become a Companion. Instead of responding with excitement to highly foreign climes, he responds with severe culture shock and opportunism which endangers the rest of the crew and gets him taken home. Adam's scenes seemed like superfluous filler, but they did provide the best part of the entire episode, which was my husband's reaction to Adam's new data-port:
My husband got to his feet, pointed, and cried, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! Genius, deeply into alien technology, phobic about things that are different, knows and resents the Doctor, "third-eye"-style dataport in the center of his forehead! Do you know who that is? That's Davros, the creator of the Daleks!"
"What?"
"Yeah! It matches perfectly! He had already met and resented the Doctor prior to his earliest appearance. This could be his real introduction."
"Well -- Adam's last name is never mentioned, nor does the Doctor say the name 'Davros' around Adam or anyone who knows him. It could be his last name or his email addy. And the Doctor did tell Von Statten that V.S. was just like the creator of the Daleks, so that might be where Davros learned his modus operandi. Maybe. But Davros is from Skaro. Adam's stuck on Earth."
"Sweetheart. Adam's a genius who knows he's living in the same country as a Time Lord's Companion. He can get to Skaro."
"Okay. It's a nice, tight conjecture. We'll see how it holds up."
"And I also think I know where Gallifrey is. It's been pushed deeper into the time stream, is only accessible from inside the TARDIS, and is now a 'city in a bottle'."
"Oh, now you're speculating way too far in advance of the data. Besides, bottled cities are so lame."
"So are ceiling monsters, but that didn't stop them. As you said, we'll see."
It would have been a good episode in an earlier age, but in the 21st Century I feel sorry for anyone watching it without as entertaining a Companion as I had.
The Doctor shows off what his TARDIS can do to Adam the New Kid by landing them in the far future, at a time when human civilization is at its height. But something's gone wrong. Someone is holding humans back by controlling and manipulating the news. Nothing wrong with that storyline at all, it's wonderful and timely. But there's a McGuffin in our tale and the Doctor fell for it.
The Thing allegedly holding humanity back is a Big Ugly Monster who lives on the ceiling of the news control nexus. But what does it DO up there? It doesn't need to kill people or give orders, both of those can be accomplished by its human attendants. It was installed by "a consortium of banks" who are it's backers. Yes, the Doctor and his team manage to kill it, think they've done something really great, and ride off into the sunset; leaving their newfound friends going "But, but, but...." and me screaming, "It's a STOOGE you great big idiot! It's a ceiling-sized fall guy! How could you be stupid enough to fall for that?" It would have worked in the 1960s but by 2005 we know the real sinister enemy is that "consortium of banks" and whoever or whatever is behind THEM.
The performances of the guest stars are first-rate, but most of the interesting bits came in Adam's subplots. We learn (and old fans are reminded) that in spite of being from a civilization with an insanely advanced technology the Doctor isn't a techie kind of guy. Given a choice between talking to a machine or talking to a person, he'll go out of his way to talk to a person.
Adam demonstrates that not everyone is cut out to become a Companion. Instead of responding with excitement to highly foreign climes, he responds with severe culture shock and opportunism which endangers the rest of the crew and gets him taken home. Adam's scenes seemed like superfluous filler, but they did provide the best part of the entire episode, which was my husband's reaction to Adam's new data-port:
My husband got to his feet, pointed, and cried, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! Genius, deeply into alien technology, phobic about things that are different, knows and resents the Doctor, "third-eye"-style dataport in the center of his forehead! Do you know who that is? That's Davros, the creator of the Daleks!"
"What?"
"Yeah! It matches perfectly! He had already met and resented the Doctor prior to his earliest appearance. This could be his real introduction."
"Well -- Adam's last name is never mentioned, nor does the Doctor say the name 'Davros' around Adam or anyone who knows him. It could be his last name or his email addy. And the Doctor did tell Von Statten that V.S. was just like the creator of the Daleks, so that might be where Davros learned his modus operandi. Maybe. But Davros is from Skaro. Adam's stuck on Earth."
"Sweetheart. Adam's a genius who knows he's living in the same country as a Time Lord's Companion. He can get to Skaro."
"Okay. It's a nice, tight conjecture. We'll see how it holds up."
"And I also think I know where Gallifrey is. It's been pushed deeper into the time stream, is only accessible from inside the TARDIS, and is now a 'city in a bottle'."
"Oh, now you're speculating way too far in advance of the data. Besides, bottled cities are so lame."
"So are ceiling monsters, but that didn't stop them. As you said, we'll see."
It would have been a good episode in an earlier age, but in the 21st Century I feel sorry for anyone watching it without as entertaining a Companion as I had.
2005 Dr. Who First Season: Dalek
Before we get started, could everyone who thinks this is really and truly the last Dalek we'll ever see on Dr. Who please join me in this corner? I've got a fabulous offer on shares in the Brooklyn Bridge I'd like to tell you about.
Right.
The TARDIS intercepts a distress call. Answering it lands the Doctor and Rose in a secret museum of alien artifacts under the Utah desert, which gives the BBC a wonderful chance to clean out their prop room.
The collection is the private property of arrogant American billionaire Henry Von Statton. Von Statton's first appearances are the only point in the series where I cringed. Are arrogant American billionaires really such jerks? But wait, it turns out later he started out as a computer geek. I guess that explains it. (end sarcasm)
The collection's prize is a living alien still in its little space suit that Von Statton has been torturing to try to get it to (literally) open up. The Doctor reacts like a bull who just had a red flag waved in its face. He charges in to save the little alien from the nasty humans. He comes in all soft and quiet to rescue the poor frightened creature, trying to win it's trust, saying, "I'm the Doctor. I'm here to help you.", and guess what it is?
Right.
It's a Dalek of course, says so right in the title. The Daleks are one of the Doctor's oldest and deadliest enemies. While it is in a severely weakened state, looking as pathetic and comical as they always do, the Dalek and the Doctor have a very revealing conversation. Then the Dalek regains it's strength, and a whole new generation learns how scary a "cosmic dustbin" can be.
This episode is the finest acting we've ever seen by anyone playing the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston shows off why he has a shelf full of dramatic awards to his name. He runs a gamut from compassion, terror, rage, grief, self-loathing, and sadism. This is not the Doctor of our childhoods. This is a haunted combat veteran out of touch with his inner Galifreyan, who doesn't know how to get back to his earlier self yet. Brilliant.
The entire cast and crew performed like they were trying for Oscar nominations, a delight in any TV show but especially welcome in a "children's show". Eccleston said in any interview that his motivation for doing the Doctor was "to show children what good drama looks like, so they'll know what to ask for when they're grown." He lives up to that goal in this episode.
Back to that revealing conversation, which is possibly the best acted sequence ever on a Dr. Who episode. Reportedly Eccleston's intensity during his first meeting with the Dalek frightened co-stars who weren't even on stage with him. I can believe it. The Daleks supposedly have all been destroyed by the Doctor, 10 million ships worth. We learn later a Dalek ships holds "just over 2,000 Daleks", so quick pencil work here, that's "just over" 2 HUNDRED BILLION Daleks.
That's an awful lot of blood on his hands.
Then we learn that the Time Lords are all destroyed too, in the same instant that the Daleks were supposedly destroyed. So was the Doctor also responsible for the destruction of his own people?
That's an awful lot more blood on his hands.
It's almost impossible to believe. In spite of whatever falling out he and the Time Lords had before the original series started -- the one that cost him his place in their society, led to them cauterizing a portion of his brain, and left him on the run in a broken-down time machine as a single parent looking after his only remaining grandchild -- the Doctor has always been their staunchest defender. He constantly derided them but he constantly derides humanity as well, and he never stopped protecting either race from alien threats. So what happened to convince him such a drastic step was necessary?
Oh, right. The Daleks.
He's always gone out of his way to give the Daleks another chance before. Now he goes out of his way to deny a Dalek another chance. What's happened to change things? What's happened to change him?
The rest of the story is predictable. Of course the Dalek escapes, kills a bunch of people, and menaces the main characters. What couldn't be predicted is how very well done that part was. It had you wondering if a single pepper-pot really could exterminate an entire planet. it also raised some other questions.
"The Time Lords cauterized the part of his brain that could connect with other Time Lords back before the very first episode. He says he can't sense "them" anymore but he hasn't been able to sense "them" in decades, except maybe in the aggregate."
"What's bothering me is where is Gallifrey? It was removed from time and space, and could only be reached by Tardis. So how could it have been destroyed? Maybe it wasn't destroyed. Maybe it was simply pushed further out of reach."
Oh, and Rose picks up Van Statten's former alien antiques' buyer, a cute genius English lad named Adam. You can almost see the Doctor rolling his eyes, "As long as he doesn't mess in the TARDIS."
Overall, this episode will go down in the Hall of Fame.
Right.
The TARDIS intercepts a distress call. Answering it lands the Doctor and Rose in a secret museum of alien artifacts under the Utah desert, which gives the BBC a wonderful chance to clean out their prop room.
The collection is the private property of arrogant American billionaire Henry Von Statton. Von Statton's first appearances are the only point in the series where I cringed. Are arrogant American billionaires really such jerks? But wait, it turns out later he started out as a computer geek. I guess that explains it. (end sarcasm)
The collection's prize is a living alien still in its little space suit that Von Statton has been torturing to try to get it to (literally) open up. The Doctor reacts like a bull who just had a red flag waved in its face. He charges in to save the little alien from the nasty humans. He comes in all soft and quiet to rescue the poor frightened creature, trying to win it's trust, saying, "I'm the Doctor. I'm here to help you.", and guess what it is?
Right.
It's a Dalek of course, says so right in the title. The Daleks are one of the Doctor's oldest and deadliest enemies. While it is in a severely weakened state, looking as pathetic and comical as they always do, the Dalek and the Doctor have a very revealing conversation. Then the Dalek regains it's strength, and a whole new generation learns how scary a "cosmic dustbin" can be.
This episode is the finest acting we've ever seen by anyone playing the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston shows off why he has a shelf full of dramatic awards to his name. He runs a gamut from compassion, terror, rage, grief, self-loathing, and sadism. This is not the Doctor of our childhoods. This is a haunted combat veteran out of touch with his inner Galifreyan, who doesn't know how to get back to his earlier self yet. Brilliant.
The entire cast and crew performed like they were trying for Oscar nominations, a delight in any TV show but especially welcome in a "children's show". Eccleston said in any interview that his motivation for doing the Doctor was "to show children what good drama looks like, so they'll know what to ask for when they're grown." He lives up to that goal in this episode.
Back to that revealing conversation, which is possibly the best acted sequence ever on a Dr. Who episode. Reportedly Eccleston's intensity during his first meeting with the Dalek frightened co-stars who weren't even on stage with him. I can believe it. The Daleks supposedly have all been destroyed by the Doctor, 10 million ships worth. We learn later a Dalek ships holds "just over 2,000 Daleks", so quick pencil work here, that's "just over" 2 HUNDRED BILLION Daleks.
That's an awful lot of blood on his hands.
Then we learn that the Time Lords are all destroyed too, in the same instant that the Daleks were supposedly destroyed. So was the Doctor also responsible for the destruction of his own people?
That's an awful lot more blood on his hands.
It's almost impossible to believe. In spite of whatever falling out he and the Time Lords had before the original series started -- the one that cost him his place in their society, led to them cauterizing a portion of his brain, and left him on the run in a broken-down time machine as a single parent looking after his only remaining grandchild -- the Doctor has always been their staunchest defender. He constantly derided them but he constantly derides humanity as well, and he never stopped protecting either race from alien threats. So what happened to convince him such a drastic step was necessary?
Oh, right. The Daleks.
He's always gone out of his way to give the Daleks another chance before. Now he goes out of his way to deny a Dalek another chance. What's happened to change things? What's happened to change him?
The rest of the story is predictable. Of course the Dalek escapes, kills a bunch of people, and menaces the main characters. What couldn't be predicted is how very well done that part was. It had you wondering if a single pepper-pot really could exterminate an entire planet. it also raised some other questions.
"The Time Lords cauterized the part of his brain that could connect with other Time Lords back before the very first episode. He says he can't sense "them" anymore but he hasn't been able to sense "them" in decades, except maybe in the aggregate."
"What's bothering me is where is Gallifrey? It was removed from time and space, and could only be reached by Tardis. So how could it have been destroyed? Maybe it wasn't destroyed. Maybe it was simply pushed further out of reach."
Oh, and Rose picks up Van Statten's former alien antiques' buyer, a cute genius English lad named Adam. You can almost see the Doctor rolling his eyes, "As long as he doesn't mess in the TARDIS."
Overall, this episode will go down in the Hall of Fame.
Friday, July 14, 2006
The Face of Hope
I don't like the sort of music videos they play on MTV these days. I prefer the early '80s-style videos. For years I've been going to Music-axis.com to watch brand new early-80's style videos set to some of the most beautiful music in the world. It's a popular site and often the links are so overloaded it's hard to find anything that will download, but it's worth the wait.
These videos are from Lebanon. They are made by young Lebanese musicians and dancers. They are full of beauty, intelligence, wit, and most of all hope for the future.
The majority of Lebanese people are not terrorists. They are cosmopolitan young people who are working to build a future for their families. They are burdened by the troubles of their heritage, but they are also buoyed by the wonders of that heritage. They are scarred by the violent war of their childhood, but they believe in peace. In the over 100 videos I've watched on this site, I have not seen a single one that calls for war with Israel or anyone else. Always they call for peace and an end to violence.
Watch some videos. Enjoy the lush photography, the music, the humor, the gorgeous men and women, the beautiful location shots.
When Israel bombs Lebanon indiscriminately, this is where those bombs land. These are the building that fall. These are the streets and the neighborhoods that are torn apart. These are the hopes that fade. These are the dreams that crumble.
These are the people who die.
Please look. It's important.
These videos are from Lebanon. They are made by young Lebanese musicians and dancers. They are full of beauty, intelligence, wit, and most of all hope for the future.
The majority of Lebanese people are not terrorists. They are cosmopolitan young people who are working to build a future for their families. They are burdened by the troubles of their heritage, but they are also buoyed by the wonders of that heritage. They are scarred by the violent war of their childhood, but they believe in peace. In the over 100 videos I've watched on this site, I have not seen a single one that calls for war with Israel or anyone else. Always they call for peace and an end to violence.
Watch some videos. Enjoy the lush photography, the music, the humor, the gorgeous men and women, the beautiful location shots.
When Israel bombs Lebanon indiscriminately, this is where those bombs land. These are the building that fall. These are the streets and the neighborhoods that are torn apart. These are the hopes that fade. These are the dreams that crumble.
These are the people who die.
Please look. It's important.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
2005 Dr. Who First Season: Aliens of London & World War 3
"That's more like it!" my husband said at the end of this 2-parter. "That's even better than Firefly!"
Episodes 4 & 5 form the first two-parter, a refreshing change since Dr. Who has traditionally had 2 hour stories. The 45-minute format was starting to feel a bit cramped.
The Doctor and Rose return from their "first date". Supposedly they've only been gone for 12 hours. Actually they've been gone for 12 months -- oh that pesky glitch in the navigational system. Rose's disappearance has led to some pretty serious consequences for her family.
Some people have complained about the "soap-opera" aspect of this story arc, but it plugs a major hole in the Dr. Who meme: what happens to the Companion's family when they're gone? People have thrown conniptions about relatively minor continuity glitches, but I always wanted to know what really did happen when Sara Jane failed to show up in South Croydon? What did Teagan's aunt think when Teagan disappeared for so long? These issues were either not treated at all in the old series or they were treated as a joke. I like that they are taken seriously now.
Post World War I Modernist fiction had an orphan fetish. Every hero, from Hemingway's crowd to Superman, were supposed to be orphans. Orphans were supposed to be better, "purer", sexier because they had fewer messy entangling alliances with other people. This conceit hung on in series media far longer than it should have because it made characters simpler to write. Unfortunately real people without those messy connections end up with serious psychological problems. Thank goodness we're finally getting away from that conceit and showing people plugged into more realistic relationships. Science fiction and fantasy stories especially need all the realism they can get.
People have complained, "It's supposed to be escapism!" Yes well it's also supposed to be a children's show; and it's a good idea that children find out that cutting yourself off from all family ties is usually Not a Good Idea. Exceptions exist, but they are rare.
I didn't like Jackie at first, but what does she do when her daughter disappears for a whole year? She devotes herself to trying to find Rose. And what does she do when her daughter reappears with a scruffy nameless stranger who offers an extremely lame explanation? She slaps him into the middle of next week. I love Jackie for that blow. Many an earlier supporting character has wanted to do the exact same thing. Both Jackie and Mickie get a chance to develop as strong, intelligent, compassionate people.
The Doctor tells Rose he's 900 years old. Huh? 60 years ago he wa not quite 800. There's some missing decades in there somewhere. What was he doing then, and how long was he involved with this "Time War"?
The plot -- someone who shall remain nameless (but whose initials are RTD) has been watching too much X-Files. An alien crash-lands a spaceship in the Thames -- but it's a fake alien. UFO experts from around the world gather to look at it -- but it's a trap to kill them set by the real aliens, who have taken over the government. Mulder would feel right at home.
And what is the alleged goal? To get the Earth to nuke itself so they can sell off the radioactive bits. There's billions of dead worlds out there you can nuke and sell off. Why bother with all that subterfuge (which was uncomfortable for the aliens) just so you can nuke a live world? It doesn't work....
...unless, in true X-Files fashion, the plot with the real aliens is a cover for another plot with another set of aliens. The Slitheen were a family business. Maybe they weren't working on spec. Maybe they were working on a commission which included a generous side package. Maybe that signal wasn't just the announcement of a fire sale, but also a signal to their real client. I ran that idea past my husband.
"You know who its got to be then," he said. "There's only one set of Who villains with a habit of working through intermediaries."
"There's two out of the Big Three, but only one uses intermediaries AND conquers planets. We're speculating way ahead of data here, though. We'll see."
After all, if you're going to do X-Files "conspiracies within conspiracies", you don't stop at just one layer. You go all the way.
The acting was excellent, but the Doctor is seriously off his feed. As my husband put it, "Tom Baker's Doctor would have figured it out in time to tell everyone to take off their badges." Or at least stolen the General's suit.
I had trouble with the Doctor's reluctance to get involved. It's not his style to sit on the sidelines, and he couldn't keep it up for long. Why did he try in the first place? Is there some reason he wants to stay out of the interplanetary limelight? What kind of attention would he attract? But that's speculating in advance of data.
I had an easier time with his difficulty coming to terms with endangering Rose, because his trouble with figuring out when it is acceptable to be responsible for the death of another, friend, foe or neutral is an ongoing plot in this season.
There's a juvenile aspect to the story which involves farting aliens. *Deep sigh*. I feel like Jackie here, "I suppose somebody put you up to it, did they? Well, you've had your fun. Just don't do it again. Ever. You hear me?" It worked in this particular story, but you can only pull a stinker like that off once without getting too camp to watch any longer.
Episodes 4 & 5 form the first two-parter, a refreshing change since Dr. Who has traditionally had 2 hour stories. The 45-minute format was starting to feel a bit cramped.
The Doctor and Rose return from their "first date". Supposedly they've only been gone for 12 hours. Actually they've been gone for 12 months -- oh that pesky glitch in the navigational system. Rose's disappearance has led to some pretty serious consequences for her family.
Some people have complained about the "soap-opera" aspect of this story arc, but it plugs a major hole in the Dr. Who meme: what happens to the Companion's family when they're gone? People have thrown conniptions about relatively minor continuity glitches, but I always wanted to know what really did happen when Sara Jane failed to show up in South Croydon? What did Teagan's aunt think when Teagan disappeared for so long? These issues were either not treated at all in the old series or they were treated as a joke. I like that they are taken seriously now.
Post World War I Modernist fiction had an orphan fetish. Every hero, from Hemingway's crowd to Superman, were supposed to be orphans. Orphans were supposed to be better, "purer", sexier because they had fewer messy entangling alliances with other people. This conceit hung on in series media far longer than it should have because it made characters simpler to write. Unfortunately real people without those messy connections end up with serious psychological problems. Thank goodness we're finally getting away from that conceit and showing people plugged into more realistic relationships. Science fiction and fantasy stories especially need all the realism they can get.
People have complained, "It's supposed to be escapism!" Yes well it's also supposed to be a children's show; and it's a good idea that children find out that cutting yourself off from all family ties is usually Not a Good Idea. Exceptions exist, but they are rare.
I didn't like Jackie at first, but what does she do when her daughter disappears for a whole year? She devotes herself to trying to find Rose. And what does she do when her daughter reappears with a scruffy nameless stranger who offers an extremely lame explanation? She slaps him into the middle of next week. I love Jackie for that blow. Many an earlier supporting character has wanted to do the exact same thing. Both Jackie and Mickie get a chance to develop as strong, intelligent, compassionate people.
The Doctor tells Rose he's 900 years old. Huh? 60 years ago he wa not quite 800. There's some missing decades in there somewhere. What was he doing then, and how long was he involved with this "Time War"?
The plot -- someone who shall remain nameless (but whose initials are RTD) has been watching too much X-Files. An alien crash-lands a spaceship in the Thames -- but it's a fake alien. UFO experts from around the world gather to look at it -- but it's a trap to kill them set by the real aliens, who have taken over the government. Mulder would feel right at home.
And what is the alleged goal? To get the Earth to nuke itself so they can sell off the radioactive bits. There's billions of dead worlds out there you can nuke and sell off. Why bother with all that subterfuge (which was uncomfortable for the aliens) just so you can nuke a live world? It doesn't work....
...unless, in true X-Files fashion, the plot with the real aliens is a cover for another plot with another set of aliens. The Slitheen were a family business. Maybe they weren't working on spec. Maybe they were working on a commission which included a generous side package. Maybe that signal wasn't just the announcement of a fire sale, but also a signal to their real client. I ran that idea past my husband.
"You know who its got to be then," he said. "There's only one set of Who villains with a habit of working through intermediaries."
"There's two out of the Big Three, but only one uses intermediaries AND conquers planets. We're speculating way ahead of data here, though. We'll see."
After all, if you're going to do X-Files "conspiracies within conspiracies", you don't stop at just one layer. You go all the way.
The acting was excellent, but the Doctor is seriously off his feed. As my husband put it, "Tom Baker's Doctor would have figured it out in time to tell everyone to take off their badges." Or at least stolen the General's suit.
I had trouble with the Doctor's reluctance to get involved. It's not his style to sit on the sidelines, and he couldn't keep it up for long. Why did he try in the first place? Is there some reason he wants to stay out of the interplanetary limelight? What kind of attention would he attract? But that's speculating in advance of data.
I had an easier time with his difficulty coming to terms with endangering Rose, because his trouble with figuring out when it is acceptable to be responsible for the death of another, friend, foe or neutral is an ongoing plot in this season.
There's a juvenile aspect to the story which involves farting aliens. *Deep sigh*. I feel like Jackie here, "I suppose somebody put you up to it, did they? Well, you've had your fun. Just don't do it again. Ever. You hear me?" It worked in this particular story, but you can only pull a stinker like that off once without getting too camp to watch any longer.
Pst: Aren't You Supposed to be Posting About Homeschooling?
I am posting about homeschooling! Right now we're taking some time off to homeschool with Dr. Who.
Besides, I've got these utterly depressing posts I'm working on about fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers and new state public school teaching guidelines. I need to remind myself that sensible people still exist somewhere in this world.
Besides, I've got these utterly depressing posts I'm working on about fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers and new state public school teaching guidelines. I need to remind myself that sensible people still exist somewhere in this world.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
2005 Dr. Who First Season: The Unquiet Dead
Episode 3: as Rose's first date continues, the Doctor takes her into the past. The TARDIS is running even rougher than before, and all these two adrenaline junkies do is laugh about it. Hello! How long's this craft supposed to hold together?
The story is a Dr. Who staple: a period costume piece with a 1950s-style "alien technology disguised as the supernatural" story. It's distinguished by how well the historical characters are fleshed out. Both the writer and the actors did an excellent job there.
We also learn that the pinpoint navigational system is still broken. The Doctor aimed for 1860 Naples and landed in 1869 Cardiff. Why Cardiff? It's not the sight of the location shots, and they're doing plenty of other "on location" stories in Cardiff. They could have set this one somewhere else.
The pacing problem with the climax seems to be worked out. Now they need to work out their more subtle pacing problems as well.
As far as the sub-plots go, we learn the name of our Great War, the "Time War", that a lot of "higher races" died in it, and that this episode's guest species lost their bodies in it. A psychic mentions that Rose has "seen the Darkness and met the Big Bad Wolf." Dunno who the Wolf's supposed to be. The Doctor? He has to be the bogeyman for dozens of would-be conquering races. If Daleks had children they would warn them, "Eat your peas or the Doctor will get you!"
In classic Dr. Who tradition, these are villains who will return. In modern TV tradition there were 3-4 subplots worked on in this episode that will return as well. That's one modern tradition that dovetails nicely with the Dr. Who universe.
The story is a Dr. Who staple: a period costume piece with a 1950s-style "alien technology disguised as the supernatural" story. It's distinguished by how well the historical characters are fleshed out. Both the writer and the actors did an excellent job there.
We also learn that the pinpoint navigational system is still broken. The Doctor aimed for 1860 Naples and landed in 1869 Cardiff. Why Cardiff? It's not the sight of the location shots, and they're doing plenty of other "on location" stories in Cardiff. They could have set this one somewhere else.
The pacing problem with the climax seems to be worked out. Now they need to work out their more subtle pacing problems as well.
As far as the sub-plots go, we learn the name of our Great War, the "Time War", that a lot of "higher races" died in it, and that this episode's guest species lost their bodies in it. A psychic mentions that Rose has "seen the Darkness and met the Big Bad Wolf." Dunno who the Wolf's supposed to be. The Doctor? He has to be the bogeyman for dozens of would-be conquering races. If Daleks had children they would warn them, "Eat your peas or the Doctor will get you!"
In classic Dr. Who tradition, these are villains who will return. In modern TV tradition there were 3-4 subplots worked on in this episode that will return as well. That's one modern tradition that dovetails nicely with the Dr. Who universe.
2005 Dr. Who First Season: "The End of the World"
Episode 2 is a standard science fiction plot with an Agatha Christie climax. All the important things happen on the sidelines.
The Doctor shows off the TARDIS by taking Rose far into the future to see the death of her planet. Odd choice for a first date, unless a person happens to already have wholesale death and destruction on their minds. Where did you just come from, Doctor?
The TARDIS is badly in need of it's 10 trillion year tune-up, and it appears that he's been jerry-rigging the controls. Sure the chameleon circuit and the pinpoint navigational control have been broken since the series began, but why is it running so rough? He was on good terms with the Council last we saw, he should be able to take it in for a tuneup.
The Expensive People have all come to watch on a posh movable observation platform. I hereby proclaim Lady Cassandra the ultimate winner of the anorexia contest. Yes, you can be too thin.
But what's this? The Doctor suddenly gets a whole lot less wooden around Jabe the tree lady. Could it be he's sexually attracted to powerful older women with a commanding presence? There weren't a lot of those in the original series. The Doctor was 792 when we first met him. This might explain his platonic relationships with most of his Companions. I can hear it now, "She's a fine girl, and she'd be a great lady in another 250 years. That's the problem with human women. By the time they're old enough to be interesting, they're dead."
Rose asks the Doctor personal questions. He's always been reluctant to answer those, but now he blows up completely. Why? Then he turns around and soups up Rose's cell-phone just so she can keep in touch with her family. Why does he value her connection to her people so much, and refuse completely to talk about his connection to his own people?
Jabe is aware of whatever war he fought in. Apparently all the Time Lords are believed to be dead. She's astonished to find him alive and offers her condolences over what happened. That makes him cry. What did happen?
Jabe's dead -- arrgh! A heroic death, but I wanted her to live. And the Doctor is a lot more willing to inflict pain and suffering on others. (Not death, though. Look at the blue cylinder.)
The Doctor tells Rose that his planet was destroyed in war and his people are all dead. That explains much about him and the TARDIS that is different.
"But where's the Eye of Rassilon?", my husband the continuity buff asks. "The TARDIS shouldn't work at all if that's gone. Wait a minute, didn't they hint in an earlier episode that they hid it on his TARDIS?"
"I thought it was in the Cloister well."
"Maybe."
More special effects this time, but it was set in the future. The pacing at the end is a still rough, but a great improvement over the first episode. Still looks good.
The Doctor shows off the TARDIS by taking Rose far into the future to see the death of her planet. Odd choice for a first date, unless a person happens to already have wholesale death and destruction on their minds. Where did you just come from, Doctor?
The TARDIS is badly in need of it's 10 trillion year tune-up, and it appears that he's been jerry-rigging the controls. Sure the chameleon circuit and the pinpoint navigational control have been broken since the series began, but why is it running so rough? He was on good terms with the Council last we saw, he should be able to take it in for a tuneup.
The Expensive People have all come to watch on a posh movable observation platform. I hereby proclaim Lady Cassandra the ultimate winner of the anorexia contest. Yes, you can be too thin.
But what's this? The Doctor suddenly gets a whole lot less wooden around Jabe the tree lady. Could it be he's sexually attracted to powerful older women with a commanding presence? There weren't a lot of those in the original series. The Doctor was 792 when we first met him. This might explain his platonic relationships with most of his Companions. I can hear it now, "She's a fine girl, and she'd be a great lady in another 250 years. That's the problem with human women. By the time they're old enough to be interesting, they're dead."
Rose asks the Doctor personal questions. He's always been reluctant to answer those, but now he blows up completely. Why? Then he turns around and soups up Rose's cell-phone just so she can keep in touch with her family. Why does he value her connection to her people so much, and refuse completely to talk about his connection to his own people?
Jabe is aware of whatever war he fought in. Apparently all the Time Lords are believed to be dead. She's astonished to find him alive and offers her condolences over what happened. That makes him cry. What did happen?
Jabe's dead -- arrgh! A heroic death, but I wanted her to live. And the Doctor is a lot more willing to inflict pain and suffering on others. (Not death, though. Look at the blue cylinder.)
The Doctor tells Rose that his planet was destroyed in war and his people are all dead. That explains much about him and the TARDIS that is different.
"But where's the Eye of Rassilon?", my husband the continuity buff asks. "The TARDIS shouldn't work at all if that's gone. Wait a minute, didn't they hint in an earlier episode that they hid it on his TARDIS?"
"I thought it was in the Cloister well."
"Maybe."
More special effects this time, but it was set in the future. The pacing at the end is a still rough, but a great improvement over the first episode. Still looks good.
Review: 2005 Dr. Who First Season, "Rose"
Yippee! Amazon had a sale on BBC collections, and I got the first season of the new Dr. Who. Dr. Who ran on PBS when I was in high school and college. The episodes I saw were over a decade old by then, but the stories were still miles ahead of anything on American TV at that time. Yes, the special effects were cheesy, but I liked the BBC's attitude toward them. "Something just happened, but lets not dwell on it. We've got a story to get back to." I liked that a lot better than the Star Trek attitude of "let's bring the whole story to a grinding halt while we gather round and watch the expensive special effect." Bo-ring! STTNG acted like science fiction fans were brain dead idiots who just liked to watch explosions. Ugh!
Now, the great thing about Dr. Who is that it's a children's show. This means I can watch it with my small fry instead of having to sneak in an episode after they've gone to bed, like I have to do with Firefly. With Dr. Who I can say, "It's what The Magic Tree House is based on." So after a brief (for Dr. Who it was brief) explanation we pop in the first disc. The children giggle at the first episode, but by the end of the second they're starting to worry about monsters.
"Does Dr. Who spend all his time fighting monsters?"
"Not all, but a lot."
"Why?"
"Well, first it's to show you that not every alien is a monster. The Doctor is an alien, and he's not bad. Most of the aliens you meet are nice. No matter what people look like on the outside, it's the ones who act bad that are the monsters."
"But why does he fight monsters all the time?"
"Because -- it's a fairy tale, all right? All fairy tales are wonder tales, and science fiction is a special type of wonder tale where everything is supposed to have a scientific explanation. The reason monsters appear in fairy tales is to show little girls and boys that yes, monsters are scary and like to do bad things. But monsters can be fought. No matter how scary they are, they can be defeated by girls and boys who are brave enough to fight them and clever enough to figure out how to win."
They liked that explanation, and have begged to see each succeeding episode.
Rose:
We have a potential Companion who is not a generic Bond Girl ripoff. She has a life, she has family who will miss her if she's gone. I don't particularly care for her mother Jackie or her boyfriend Mickey as characters, especially not after Jackie's clumsy attempt to seduce the Doctor. Honesty forces me to admit I've got worse relatives though.
I'm reminded of the ad for Pierce Brosnan's remake of James Bond. "The name is Bond. You know the rest." The episode deals with iconic elements in almost a cursory way, because you'd have to be living under a rock not to know them. The exceptions are where those elements would be new and strange to Rose. There we get to see them through her eyes, and the writers and directors wisely give her time to explore her reactions instead of rushing on to the next scene. This is the way science fiction should be filmed. The camera should dwell on people, not explosions.
The Doctor has changed again. He's got the shortest hair and scruffiest clothes we've ever seen on him, which is odd because through all his regenerations he's always been a relatively long-haired clothes horse. He's also much more distant with people and highly irritable. And his "adrenaline junkie" side is far more dominant than it's ever been before. It doesn't look "alien", except that we've never seen it on the Doctor before. He looks and acts like a soldier who's just returned from a long and terrible war, one who's seen too much on the battlefield and hasn't had time to come to grips with it yet.
Ahh -- there has been a Great War of some sort, and the bad guys are among the dislocated refugees. He's followed them here off some battlefield. And apparently they blame him for something that happened in that war, a charge he protests but does not completely deny. What have you been up to, Doctor?
There's a strong X-Files element. Let's hope they don't get silly like X-Files did. After all, we know very well there are aliens out there. We're rooting for one of them.
The special effects are nice, without being overdone. Okay, maybe the belching trash bin was a bit over the top. I think they're trying to remind us it's a British show. It was a little tasteless and juvenile, but sometimes life is a little tasteless and juvenile. As long as they keep that part to a minimum I won't complain.
Their biggest problem was that the pacing at the climax stunk. It's a first episode, hopefully they'll get better.
Mickey has a sensible person's reaction to the TARDIS -- get away from me! Rose has an adrenaline junkie's reaction to the TARDIS -- more! I loved how the Doctor not-quite-begged her to stay. Alien or not, like most people he needs another person around to remind him that he is a person.
All in all, a very impressive start.
Now, the great thing about Dr. Who is that it's a children's show. This means I can watch it with my small fry instead of having to sneak in an episode after they've gone to bed, like I have to do with Firefly. With Dr. Who I can say, "It's what The Magic Tree House is based on." So after a brief (for Dr. Who it was brief) explanation we pop in the first disc. The children giggle at the first episode, but by the end of the second they're starting to worry about monsters.
"Does Dr. Who spend all his time fighting monsters?"
"Not all, but a lot."
"Why?"
"Well, first it's to show you that not every alien is a monster. The Doctor is an alien, and he's not bad. Most of the aliens you meet are nice. No matter what people look like on the outside, it's the ones who act bad that are the monsters."
"But why does he fight monsters all the time?"
"Because -- it's a fairy tale, all right? All fairy tales are wonder tales, and science fiction is a special type of wonder tale where everything is supposed to have a scientific explanation. The reason monsters appear in fairy tales is to show little girls and boys that yes, monsters are scary and like to do bad things. But monsters can be fought. No matter how scary they are, they can be defeated by girls and boys who are brave enough to fight them and clever enough to figure out how to win."
They liked that explanation, and have begged to see each succeeding episode.
Rose:
We have a potential Companion who is not a generic Bond Girl ripoff. She has a life, she has family who will miss her if she's gone. I don't particularly care for her mother Jackie or her boyfriend Mickey as characters, especially not after Jackie's clumsy attempt to seduce the Doctor. Honesty forces me to admit I've got worse relatives though.
I'm reminded of the ad for Pierce Brosnan's remake of James Bond. "The name is Bond. You know the rest." The episode deals with iconic elements in almost a cursory way, because you'd have to be living under a rock not to know them. The exceptions are where those elements would be new and strange to Rose. There we get to see them through her eyes, and the writers and directors wisely give her time to explore her reactions instead of rushing on to the next scene. This is the way science fiction should be filmed. The camera should dwell on people, not explosions.
The Doctor has changed again. He's got the shortest hair and scruffiest clothes we've ever seen on him, which is odd because through all his regenerations he's always been a relatively long-haired clothes horse. He's also much more distant with people and highly irritable. And his "adrenaline junkie" side is far more dominant than it's ever been before. It doesn't look "alien", except that we've never seen it on the Doctor before. He looks and acts like a soldier who's just returned from a long and terrible war, one who's seen too much on the battlefield and hasn't had time to come to grips with it yet.
Ahh -- there has been a Great War of some sort, and the bad guys are among the dislocated refugees. He's followed them here off some battlefield. And apparently they blame him for something that happened in that war, a charge he protests but does not completely deny. What have you been up to, Doctor?
There's a strong X-Files element. Let's hope they don't get silly like X-Files did. After all, we know very well there are aliens out there. We're rooting for one of them.
The special effects are nice, without being overdone. Okay, maybe the belching trash bin was a bit over the top. I think they're trying to remind us it's a British show. It was a little tasteless and juvenile, but sometimes life is a little tasteless and juvenile. As long as they keep that part to a minimum I won't complain.
Their biggest problem was that the pacing at the climax stunk. It's a first episode, hopefully they'll get better.
Mickey has a sensible person's reaction to the TARDIS -- get away from me! Rose has an adrenaline junkie's reaction to the TARDIS -- more! I loved how the Doctor not-quite-begged her to stay. Alien or not, like most people he needs another person around to remind him that he is a person.
All in all, a very impressive start.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Is the public school system harming teachers?
My husband is a high school teacher. He frequently complains that his work starves him of any chance to have an intelligent conversation with another adult during the school year. Since school let out this spring he's been talking my ear off in a sort of compensation. Yesterday we had the following conversation:
"...that's my best conjecture at this point. What do you think?"
"You asked me what I thought at 9 a.m. I had an opinion then. It's now 2 p.m. You've talked for 5 hours non-stop."
"Oh. Sorry. What were you going to say?"
"I've had so many thoughts over those hours I can no longer remember any of them."
"Well, I'm almost finished. Let me get this out...." He then talked for 2 more hours, while eating and doing maintenance work at the same time.
Do other teachers do this? He didn't act like this before he became a high school teacher. It can't be healthy.
"...that's my best conjecture at this point. What do you think?"
"You asked me what I thought at 9 a.m. I had an opinion then. It's now 2 p.m. You've talked for 5 hours non-stop."
"Oh. Sorry. What were you going to say?"
"I've had so many thoughts over those hours I can no longer remember any of them."
"Well, I'm almost finished. Let me get this out...." He then talked for 2 more hours, while eating and doing maintenance work at the same time.
Do other teachers do this? He didn't act like this before he became a high school teacher. It can't be healthy.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Summer Not-So Fun
KVETCH WARNING: serious kvetching ahead. You have been warned. But will you listen? People never do...
Summer got off to a rotten start. The Library's Summer Reading Program was a total bust. In the entire program, nobody read the children a single book. Only once did one of their "special guests" actually show up, most times nobody did anything with the children who were present.
This year's Catholic Charities program was run by the First Grade Teacher From Hell (retired). She herded the children through a terrible reading program without first determining if they needed it or not, whose high point was showing them the same online programs we already use. Sunshine got so stressed she started throwing up.
All the children's clubs, classes, and programs that we and people we know of have tried to start have fallen through.
We replumbed the bathroom, replaced all the polybuterate pipe and the plastic sink last week. The new sink's stopper broke it's drain pipe tonight. Talk about poor engineering.
The air conditioner broke and was sending a waterfall into the house before we replumbed IT.
My husband needs some linen cord for a project. He called around and found out that the Irish factory that made it had been bought up by an American conglomerate and shut down three days before he made the call. "222 years in business, and the week I want to buy something they go under", he muttered.
We won't be able to make this summer's Mississippi Homeschool Conference due to scheduling conflicts with his job.
The summer training program his school district wants him to take just got rescheduled for Brighteyes' birthday.
We advertised for sales positions for a business we're trying to start up. 25 people called in to answer the ad. None of them showed up for an interview.
Aaand the DVD remote has vanished.
All of which has me feeling pretty blue. The only bright spot so far has been the tiny local annual rodeo last week. I'll try to post that story soon.
END KVETCH WARNING.
Summer got off to a rotten start. The Library's Summer Reading Program was a total bust. In the entire program, nobody read the children a single book. Only once did one of their "special guests" actually show up, most times nobody did anything with the children who were present.
This year's Catholic Charities program was run by the First Grade Teacher From Hell (retired). She herded the children through a terrible reading program without first determining if they needed it or not, whose high point was showing them the same online programs we already use. Sunshine got so stressed she started throwing up.
All the children's clubs, classes, and programs that we and people we know of have tried to start have fallen through.
We replumbed the bathroom, replaced all the polybuterate pipe and the plastic sink last week. The new sink's stopper broke it's drain pipe tonight. Talk about poor engineering.
The air conditioner broke and was sending a waterfall into the house before we replumbed IT.
My husband needs some linen cord for a project. He called around and found out that the Irish factory that made it had been bought up by an American conglomerate and shut down three days before he made the call. "222 years in business, and the week I want to buy something they go under", he muttered.
We won't be able to make this summer's Mississippi Homeschool Conference due to scheduling conflicts with his job.
The summer training program his school district wants him to take just got rescheduled for Brighteyes' birthday.
We advertised for sales positions for a business we're trying to start up. 25 people called in to answer the ad. None of them showed up for an interview.
Aaand the DVD remote has vanished.
All of which has me feeling pretty blue. The only bright spot so far has been the tiny local annual rodeo last week. I'll try to post that story soon.
END KVETCH WARNING.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Town Rejects Supermarket, Business Booms
The Guardian UK has an interesting series on how chain stores destroy entire economies. This article is their latest.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Business Begs State for More Regulation
Is there any surer sign that we're living in a Republican Administration? The Mississippi Health Department is getting terribly lax with restaurant inspections, and people are getting terribly sick. And the Governor is gunning for the Presidency, so you can look forward to his "special dinners" Coming Soon to a Restaurant Near You.
Americans' circle of close friends shrinking
So say the scientists. It certainly explains the widespread depression we've seen and the enormous trouble we've had getting up any form of children's club. I wonder how many people who try to pry into other people's lifestyles are really leading "lives of quiet desperation." What do you think?
Busy, busy, busy
I've been taking care of a new puppy, re-plumbing the bathroom and doing other major maintenance, and fighting depression. I'll give you the gory details when I have time and energy to post.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
2006 Show Schedule
September 16 -- Indian Summer Festival Fine Arts Show, Hancock House, Okolona, Mississippi.
September 30 -- Ole Miss Homecoming Rock & Gem Show, Oxford Train Depot, Oxford, Mississippi.
November -- Trunk Show, Reed's Department Store, Downtown Tupelo, Mississippi.
December 1 - 3 -- Chimneyville Crafts Festival, Mississippi Trade Mart, Jackson, Mississippi.
This year is the first time we've set up at shows since we started building our workshop (and having babies!) We're scoping out additional shows this year, and we'll add some of them to the list next year.
September 30 -- Ole Miss Homecoming Rock & Gem Show, Oxford Train Depot, Oxford, Mississippi.
November -- Trunk Show, Reed's Department Store, Downtown Tupelo, Mississippi.
December 1 - 3 -- Chimneyville Crafts Festival, Mississippi Trade Mart, Jackson, Mississippi.
This year is the first time we've set up at shows since we started building our workshop (and having babies!) We're scoping out additional shows this year, and we'll add some of them to the list next year.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Summer Goodies At Our Website
Our new pieces for this summer are up at Brigid's Forge. They include some carved castings with carnelians and the first of the belts. The belts didn't photograph as well as we hoped; we're more used to photographing silver. We had fun making our own leather stamps and playing with them. Leather stamps are over ten times easier to make than silver stamps.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Sneaky Sale at Dover
Dover Publications, publisher and reprinter of many interesting volumes, is having a stealth sale on their books. If you get the children's book catalog this summer, it'll tell you about a sale on Dover Books that lasts until July 31, 2006. The sale is on all their books, but it's not mentioned on their website or in their other catalogs. It's only mentioned in the children's catalog. That's not fair. Here's the code that you enter on the last line of any Dover order form to activate the sale. CCA6 gets you $10 off a $30 order. CCB6 gets you $20 off a $50 order, which also qualifies for free shipping.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Blogspot problems
It's my turn for Blogspot to intermittently mess up my account. I hear they get everyone from time to time, but this week is the first time it's happened to me. That's why I haven't posted anything this week. :(
Sunday, June 04, 2006
15 Garments
4 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts, 2 nightgowns, and 6 dresses. That's how much I've sewn for the girls for their summer wardrobe. Not by any means the whole of it, but the way they keep growing up and not out I keep having to sew more for them every year. Looks like it will be even more in the fall.
I can see why families that sew a lot have restricted color choices too. I was tempted to restrict mine, but I'm trying to teach them to own their choices by picking out their own fabrics. Brighteyes informed me that her favorite color is no longer light pink. Light pink is for babies. Now it's hot pink. Sunshine experimented with yellow for a favorite color. It looks terrible on her, but I'd rather her find that out now with half a yard of $4.00/yd fabric that with a more expensive option later on.
I did restrict the patterns though. I used three of them. One shorts pattern for both girls, Sunshine just had less elastic. One shirt pattern for each girl. Shortened, the shirt became the bodice of a dress with a gathered skirt. Lengthened, it became a nightgown. I've got tons of patterns I could have used, but cutting it down to just three saved loads of time.
Now, I''ve got to sew a kimono for my husband. I found a grey-and-black Asian dragon print on sale, and I'll probably never find a more perfect fabric to make one out of. Then I get to sew for ME!
I can see why families that sew a lot have restricted color choices too. I was tempted to restrict mine, but I'm trying to teach them to own their choices by picking out their own fabrics. Brighteyes informed me that her favorite color is no longer light pink. Light pink is for babies. Now it's hot pink. Sunshine experimented with yellow for a favorite color. It looks terrible on her, but I'd rather her find that out now with half a yard of $4.00/yd fabric that with a more expensive option later on.
I did restrict the patterns though. I used three of them. One shorts pattern for both girls, Sunshine just had less elastic. One shirt pattern for each girl. Shortened, the shirt became the bodice of a dress with a gathered skirt. Lengthened, it became a nightgown. I've got tons of patterns I could have used, but cutting it down to just three saved loads of time.
Now, I''ve got to sew a kimono for my husband. I found a grey-and-black Asian dragon print on sale, and I'll probably never find a more perfect fabric to make one out of. Then I get to sew for ME!
Saturday, June 03, 2006
New Addition
We have a new addition to our family. Sunshine has a Lhasa Apso puppie named Brownie. Details to follow, I'm exhausted.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Minimus Worksheet Templates, Chapter 3 Part 2
These are for use with Minimus Latin.
New Verbs: you read, you cook
New Conjunction: because
New Adgective: strong
New Adverb: always
New Exclamation: No!
Noun Bank: mother, father, daughter, son, small child, cat, mouse, sister, soul, birthday, gift, house, garden, dress, soldier, cloak, wasp, whale, dolphin, horse, rabbit, pig, dinner, fish sauce, elephant, swan, peacock, parrot, fish, bull, dog, cow, hen, fox, cat, frog, badger, bird, cheese, bedroom, sir, slave girl
Adjective Bank: famous, beautiful, dirty, messy, tired, excellent, fat, big, small, very big, very small, friendly, naughty, good, very good, clever, very clever, beautiful, lazy, energetic, new, strong
Verb Bank: I am, we are, you are (singular), you are (plural), is, are, will be, I have, sit (plural), come (singular), sit down (singular), get up, silent (plural), smiles (singular) you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling, you read, you cook
Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
Adverb Bank: now, once upon a time, of course, especially, suddenly, always
Pronoun Bank: I, we, everyone, my
Conjunction Bank: and, but, because
Greetings Bank: Hello, Hello (plural), Goodbye, Dear (female), Dear (male), Dearest (female)
Exclamation Bank: yeah!, oh dear, No!
Negative Bank: not, don't, No!
New sentance structures:
(Noun) (Verb) because (Noun) (Nerb).
(Noun) is (Noun/Adjective) becasue (Noun) is (Noun/Adjective).
New Verbs: you read, you cook
New Conjunction: because
New Adgective: strong
New Adverb: always
New Exclamation: No!
Noun Bank: mother, father, daughter, son, small child, cat, mouse, sister, soul, birthday, gift, house, garden, dress, soldier, cloak, wasp, whale, dolphin, horse, rabbit, pig, dinner, fish sauce, elephant, swan, peacock, parrot, fish, bull, dog, cow, hen, fox, cat, frog, badger, bird, cheese, bedroom, sir, slave girl
Adjective Bank: famous, beautiful, dirty, messy, tired, excellent, fat, big, small, very big, very small, friendly, naughty, good, very good, clever, very clever, beautiful, lazy, energetic, new, strong
Verb Bank: I am, we are, you are (singular), you are (plural), is, are, will be, I have, sit (plural), come (singular), sit down (singular), get up, silent (plural), smiles (singular) you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling, you read, you cook
Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
Adverb Bank: now, once upon a time, of course, especially, suddenly, always
Pronoun Bank: I, we, everyone, my
Conjunction Bank: and, but, because
Greetings Bank: Hello, Hello (plural), Goodbye, Dear (female), Dear (male), Dearest (female)
Exclamation Bank: yeah!, oh dear, No!
Negative Bank: not, don't, No!
New sentance structures:
(Noun) (Verb) because (Noun) (Nerb).
(Noun) is (Noun/Adjective) becasue (Noun) is (Noun/Adjective).
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Check-in time. My husband is finally through with school for the year. He and I were dragging badly by the end or the term, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Now he's home for summer and concentrating on our home business.
We've also had a long-running virus that left us tired and thirsty, but otherwise fine. Luckily the girls don't seem to have caught it. I've had trouble finding time to write coherent posts though.
My husband made his first two stamped leather belts. The first belt was a black practice piece that came out streaky. It turns out that if you want to dye something a flat black you first have to dye it hot pink, then overdye it. So next time you see someone looking tough in black leather, just picture all that hide in the hot pink color it used to be. Hee!
The second belt was my Mother's Day gift. It's dark blue with a stars, moons, suns, dragons and pegusi stamped on it with silver accents. I like it a lot. I haven't had a belt I liked in years. Of course I've also got out of the habit of wearing belts, so I don't have anything to wear it with. Now I've got to sew up some pants or something with actual belt loops.
He's really getting into the leather and fur. The other day I mentioned making a new bedspread, and he wanted to buy a full-size buffalo hide to use instead. He thought it would be fun to watch the dogs bark at it. My brain shorted out. I'm just not ready for that yet.
Eventually I want to hit him up for a Sheridan-style tooled leather corset. Wouldn't that be something to see? But I'd have to sew it myself, and I don't know if my sewing skills are up to corsets yet.
I'm almost through with the girls' summer wear. There's just two dresses to finish, then a third dress and two bottle carriers to sew. Then my husband is getting a kimono in a grey print with black dragons on it and black-and-grey Japanese trim. Then I finally get to sew for me. Yay!
The girls went on their first joint sleepover Friday night, and did very well. It was the first time we had an evening to ourselves in six years. Unfortunately we were so tired and so sick about all we could do was watch a couple of episodes of Firefly. We tried to eat lunch out at a restaurant Saturday, but we were so sleepy and ran so late all we had time for was a Cola and some deli chicken at the grocery.
Eh, I've moaned and groaned enough. Time to do something about my problems, like go to bed.
We've also had a long-running virus that left us tired and thirsty, but otherwise fine. Luckily the girls don't seem to have caught it. I've had trouble finding time to write coherent posts though.
My husband made his first two stamped leather belts. The first belt was a black practice piece that came out streaky. It turns out that if you want to dye something a flat black you first have to dye it hot pink, then overdye it. So next time you see someone looking tough in black leather, just picture all that hide in the hot pink color it used to be. Hee!
The second belt was my Mother's Day gift. It's dark blue with a stars, moons, suns, dragons and pegusi stamped on it with silver accents. I like it a lot. I haven't had a belt I liked in years. Of course I've also got out of the habit of wearing belts, so I don't have anything to wear it with. Now I've got to sew up some pants or something with actual belt loops.
He's really getting into the leather and fur. The other day I mentioned making a new bedspread, and he wanted to buy a full-size buffalo hide to use instead. He thought it would be fun to watch the dogs bark at it. My brain shorted out. I'm just not ready for that yet.
Eventually I want to hit him up for a Sheridan-style tooled leather corset. Wouldn't that be something to see? But I'd have to sew it myself, and I don't know if my sewing skills are up to corsets yet.
I'm almost through with the girls' summer wear. There's just two dresses to finish, then a third dress and two bottle carriers to sew. Then my husband is getting a kimono in a grey print with black dragons on it and black-and-grey Japanese trim. Then I finally get to sew for me. Yay!
The girls went on their first joint sleepover Friday night, and did very well. It was the first time we had an evening to ourselves in six years. Unfortunately we were so tired and so sick about all we could do was watch a couple of episodes of Firefly. We tried to eat lunch out at a restaurant Saturday, but we were so sleepy and ran so late all we had time for was a Cola and some deli chicken at the grocery.
Eh, I've moaned and groaned enough. Time to do something about my problems, like go to bed.
The Da Vinci Code
Last week I saw this headline on a supermarket tabloid, "The Da Vinci Code Diet!" Talk about the ultimate transformation of the sacred into the profane, at least in terms of contemporary American materialism.
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code. I haven't read Holy Blood, Holy Grail either, but many of my friends read it years ago, and then asked my husband and I to verify what we could of it's claims. This means that while everyone else is running around talking about "new" revelations, I'm scratching my head and going, "But we did this ten years ago."
So, here's what I remember from those sessions:
Yes, the Opus Dei is the new(er) name of the Inquisition. No, they've never had monks. It's a branch of the Vatican government, not an order.
Yes, early Christianity was 100 times more diverse than Catholic tradition records. Women played a large role as missionaries and church leaders. Many early churches were originally the property of Roman women, who by law could not will their land to their choice of heir but who could leave it to a religious organization.
Yes, the Gnostics had very different ideas about life and Christianity than the proto-Catholics did, however they appear to have been even more hung up over sex for the most part. Some poor soul even tried to start a branch of Christianity that included an Eluesian-style mystery rite, but this failed. According to the witnesses, the initiates were laughing so hard when they emerged they could hardly stand up.
At that time it was fashionable for all royal families to claim divine descent from their patron God/dess, even though these claims were not taken literally in cosmopolitan areas. When the Romans wrote up their own attempts to make the emperor semi-Divine, you could tell they were having trouble keeping a straight face. The Frankish Mero Vinca family originally billed itself as "the children of the sea Goddess Mer." Later, when the patron God/dess of the region switched, the family switched its lineage as well. No one ever said they weren't pragmatic.
They did say the Merovingians were stupid and cruel. They became kings by killing off their own relatives -- think Dynasty meets the Godfather and ramp it a hundredfold. In the end, most of the work was done by their major-domo, Pippin the Younger aka Pepin the Short. Pippin wrote the Pope asking what to do. The Pope wrote back that "the one who does the work should wear the crown", thus sanctioning Pepin to take out the Merovingians. Pippin saw to it that all the Merovingians were either put to death or died without issue. If the Merovingians were supposed to be the "bloodline of Christ" it's highly unlikely the Pope would have sanctioned their extermination. And don't doubt that in those days "removing" a family from office amounted to exterminating the bloodline. Even the in-laws of distant cousins were in danger of being killed. These people believed in "long-lost heirs to the throne", and they were deadly serious about preventing any.
Mary Magdalene. In the Bible it says that Jesus "cast seven devils" out of her. It says that she didn't go in the kitchen with the other women to help clean up after meals, but stayed to talk with the men. When the women rebuked her, Jesus rebuked them. It says that she stayed by the tomb and was the first to speak to Jesus after the Resurrection, calling him "Teacher."
That's little to base a portrait on, but to me it seems simplest to think of Mary M. as a sharp-tongued, opinionated woman who loved learning and chafed from not having anyone to converse with. When she finally found someone worth talking to she stopped taking out her frustration on her neighbors, and began spending all her time with him and his friends.
Did she love him? Under those circumstances it's not unlikely.
Was she married to him? Insufficient data.
Was Jesus married to anybody? The Bible doesn't say, but the Bible was edited by men who had a bone to pick with women. It's possible Jesus' marital status was edited out.
It's true that Jesus' mother was obsessing about the food and wine at the wedding as if she were the hostess and mother of the groom, but we don't have sufficient information to say if she was the mother of the groom, if she was assisting the mother of the groom, and/or if she was just an obsessive busybody. The Bible does say that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and many of the extra-Biblical sources from his lifetime that mention Jesus spend more time talking about his brother James. It seems more likely to me that she was nagging the brother(s) and/or cousin(s) of the groom to make a wine run.
Tradition says that after witnessing the Resurrection Mary M. moved to Europe with a group of other Christian women. While there she worked as a high-level missionary and church leader, even witnessing to the Roman emperor before moving to what is now southern France.
Among her party was a little girl named Sara. Various accounts call Sara the daughter of Mary M., the daughter of another of the women, or a foundling, or slave child owned by the women. Sara inherited the women's property and job, becoming an early Christian saint, but it appears that she never married and died without issue. Another tradition names Sara as a Pagan princess unrelated to any of the women. The Catholic church eventually un-Sainted her as a myth, but there is insufficient data available to the public to say.
Did Jesus have a child? More bluntly, did he have sex? Even when I was a Christian, I never understood the people to whom this mattered. Surely what Jesus did the 16 hours each day he was out of bed were more important than what he did the 8 hours he was in bed, provided whatever it was was consensual.
Was Jesus the Son of God? Of course he was. So are we all the sons and daughters of God and Goddess.
But if everybody is the Child of God then he isn't special! I have trouble imagining how anyone could be "not special", especially someone as extraordinary as Jesus.
But what about Sin and Redemption? Most of the sin-and-redemption schtick was added to the Christian interpretation of the Bible 300 years after Christ died, by Augustine of Hippo. He also introduced many other not-so-lovely innovations to Christianity, like burning people at the stake who disagreed with him. His sinful interpretation of the Bible was so far from the contemporary interpretations that his early treatise was greeted with outright laughter by other Christian leaders. His followers spent 100 years lobbying, defaming the supporters of the traditional view of Jesus and burning their writings, and in one case outright bribing the emperor with war horses, before they finally got it accepted at the Council of Nicea. The Nicene Creed would not have won the vote without nearly century of dirty politics behind it. And that story would make a far more interesting movie than The Da Vinci Code.
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code. I haven't read Holy Blood, Holy Grail either, but many of my friends read it years ago, and then asked my husband and I to verify what we could of it's claims. This means that while everyone else is running around talking about "new" revelations, I'm scratching my head and going, "But we did this ten years ago."
So, here's what I remember from those sessions:
Yes, the Opus Dei is the new(er) name of the Inquisition. No, they've never had monks. It's a branch of the Vatican government, not an order.
Yes, early Christianity was 100 times more diverse than Catholic tradition records. Women played a large role as missionaries and church leaders. Many early churches were originally the property of Roman women, who by law could not will their land to their choice of heir but who could leave it to a religious organization.
Yes, the Gnostics had very different ideas about life and Christianity than the proto-Catholics did, however they appear to have been even more hung up over sex for the most part. Some poor soul even tried to start a branch of Christianity that included an Eluesian-style mystery rite, but this failed. According to the witnesses, the initiates were laughing so hard when they emerged they could hardly stand up.
At that time it was fashionable for all royal families to claim divine descent from their patron God/dess, even though these claims were not taken literally in cosmopolitan areas. When the Romans wrote up their own attempts to make the emperor semi-Divine, you could tell they were having trouble keeping a straight face. The Frankish Mero Vinca family originally billed itself as "the children of the sea Goddess Mer." Later, when the patron God/dess of the region switched, the family switched its lineage as well. No one ever said they weren't pragmatic.
They did say the Merovingians were stupid and cruel. They became kings by killing off their own relatives -- think Dynasty meets the Godfather and ramp it a hundredfold. In the end, most of the work was done by their major-domo, Pippin the Younger aka Pepin the Short. Pippin wrote the Pope asking what to do. The Pope wrote back that "the one who does the work should wear the crown", thus sanctioning Pepin to take out the Merovingians. Pippin saw to it that all the Merovingians were either put to death or died without issue. If the Merovingians were supposed to be the "bloodline of Christ" it's highly unlikely the Pope would have sanctioned their extermination. And don't doubt that in those days "removing" a family from office amounted to exterminating the bloodline. Even the in-laws of distant cousins were in danger of being killed. These people believed in "long-lost heirs to the throne", and they were deadly serious about preventing any.
Mary Magdalene. In the Bible it says that Jesus "cast seven devils" out of her. It says that she didn't go in the kitchen with the other women to help clean up after meals, but stayed to talk with the men. When the women rebuked her, Jesus rebuked them. It says that she stayed by the tomb and was the first to speak to Jesus after the Resurrection, calling him "Teacher."
That's little to base a portrait on, but to me it seems simplest to think of Mary M. as a sharp-tongued, opinionated woman who loved learning and chafed from not having anyone to converse with. When she finally found someone worth talking to she stopped taking out her frustration on her neighbors, and began spending all her time with him and his friends.
Did she love him? Under those circumstances it's not unlikely.
Was she married to him? Insufficient data.
Was Jesus married to anybody? The Bible doesn't say, but the Bible was edited by men who had a bone to pick with women. It's possible Jesus' marital status was edited out.
It's true that Jesus' mother was obsessing about the food and wine at the wedding as if she were the hostess and mother of the groom, but we don't have sufficient information to say if she was the mother of the groom, if she was assisting the mother of the groom, and/or if she was just an obsessive busybody. The Bible does say that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and many of the extra-Biblical sources from his lifetime that mention Jesus spend more time talking about his brother James. It seems more likely to me that she was nagging the brother(s) and/or cousin(s) of the groom to make a wine run.
Tradition says that after witnessing the Resurrection Mary M. moved to Europe with a group of other Christian women. While there she worked as a high-level missionary and church leader, even witnessing to the Roman emperor before moving to what is now southern France.
Among her party was a little girl named Sara. Various accounts call Sara the daughter of Mary M., the daughter of another of the women, or a foundling, or slave child owned by the women. Sara inherited the women's property and job, becoming an early Christian saint, but it appears that she never married and died without issue. Another tradition names Sara as a Pagan princess unrelated to any of the women. The Catholic church eventually un-Sainted her as a myth, but there is insufficient data available to the public to say.
Did Jesus have a child? More bluntly, did he have sex? Even when I was a Christian, I never understood the people to whom this mattered. Surely what Jesus did the 16 hours each day he was out of bed were more important than what he did the 8 hours he was in bed, provided whatever it was was consensual.
Was Jesus the Son of God? Of course he was. So are we all the sons and daughters of God and Goddess.
But if everybody is the Child of God then he isn't special! I have trouble imagining how anyone could be "not special", especially someone as extraordinary as Jesus.
But what about Sin and Redemption? Most of the sin-and-redemption schtick was added to the Christian interpretation of the Bible 300 years after Christ died, by Augustine of Hippo. He also introduced many other not-so-lovely innovations to Christianity, like burning people at the stake who disagreed with him. His sinful interpretation of the Bible was so far from the contemporary interpretations that his early treatise was greeted with outright laughter by other Christian leaders. His followers spent 100 years lobbying, defaming the supporters of the traditional view of Jesus and burning their writings, and in one case outright bribing the emperor with war horses, before they finally got it accepted at the Council of Nicea. The Nicene Creed would not have won the vote without nearly century of dirty politics behind it. And that story would make a far more interesting movie than The Da Vinci Code.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The Bobbsey Twins Meet Brighteyes and Sunshine
Saturday the girls got a box from my Mom with the first three Bobbsey Twins books in it. The original version, not the 60s rehash I read. Brighteyes started on the first one at 9 in the morning. She finished it at 3 that afternoon while her Daddy was giving a soldering demonstration at the Rock and Gem club, which was very impressed at how quiet and well-behaved the girls acted. She had read the third book by bedtime Sunday night. I think we have a hit on our hands.
Sunday night I started reading the first book at bedtime for Sunshine's benefit. The first chapter included the assertion by a child that girls could only grow up to do certain jobs. Brighteyes frowned.
"Mommy, why did they say girls can't be soldiers? You showed us those pictures of girls soldiers in the Civil War."
"Well honey, they probably didn't know about those girl soldiers in the Civil War. Not a lot of people talked about them at the time.
People have never been completely effective at keeping all girls and women from doing any job they wanted to do; but they sometimes made it very hard for girls to do any job they wanted. They would do all sorts of things to keep girls from working certain jobs, like being a soldier. A girl could always be a soldier, but sometimes she had to pretend she was a man to get the job.
This book was written a hundred years ago. At that time there was a lot of effort put into keeping women out of a lot of jobs. But between then and now an awful lot of women -- and some men! -- worked very, very hard to make sure that girls could do any job they wanted without having to pretend to be a man."
Monday at lunch the conversation continued:
"Mommy, why did they try to keep girls from certain jobs?"
"Do you remember the Ages of History you learned?"
"Yes."
"What were they?"
"Um, Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Computer Age."
"Very good. Remember I said each new age came about because people invented some new way of making tools? I said that whenever that happened, a lot of people who had made their living with the old tools ended up out of work."
"That's bad."
"Yes. While in general most people were better off, a lot of people were left without jobs.
A hundred years ago was in the middle of the Industrial Age. A lot of people were thrown out of work. Somebody decided that the way to handle all those people who didn't have jobs was to take jobs away from women and not let them work. That way men could work those jobs."
"That's silly!"
"I didn't say it was a good idea. It wasn't."
"It's stupid!"
It'll be interesting to see where the Bobbsey Twins leads us next.
Sunday night I started reading the first book at bedtime for Sunshine's benefit. The first chapter included the assertion by a child that girls could only grow up to do certain jobs. Brighteyes frowned.
"Mommy, why did they say girls can't be soldiers? You showed us those pictures of girls soldiers in the Civil War."
"Well honey, they probably didn't know about those girl soldiers in the Civil War. Not a lot of people talked about them at the time.
People have never been completely effective at keeping all girls and women from doing any job they wanted to do; but they sometimes made it very hard for girls to do any job they wanted. They would do all sorts of things to keep girls from working certain jobs, like being a soldier. A girl could always be a soldier, but sometimes she had to pretend she was a man to get the job.
This book was written a hundred years ago. At that time there was a lot of effort put into keeping women out of a lot of jobs. But between then and now an awful lot of women -- and some men! -- worked very, very hard to make sure that girls could do any job they wanted without having to pretend to be a man."
Monday at lunch the conversation continued:
"Mommy, why did they try to keep girls from certain jobs?"
"Do you remember the Ages of History you learned?"
"Yes."
"What were they?"
"Um, Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Computer Age."
"Very good. Remember I said each new age came about because people invented some new way of making tools? I said that whenever that happened, a lot of people who had made their living with the old tools ended up out of work."
"That's bad."
"Yes. While in general most people were better off, a lot of people were left without jobs.
A hundred years ago was in the middle of the Industrial Age. A lot of people were thrown out of work. Somebody decided that the way to handle all those people who didn't have jobs was to take jobs away from women and not let them work. That way men could work those jobs."
"That's silly!"
"I didn't say it was a good idea. It wasn't."
"It's stupid!"
It'll be interesting to see where the Bobbsey Twins leads us next.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Oh Where, Oh Where Has Your Editor Gone?
Oh where, oh where can she be?
Your clauses are dangling,
Your research is flawed,
A total rewrite you need!
But if you want to show a child what poorly researched, badly written drek disguised as historical research looks like, click on this link.
Your clauses are dangling,
Your research is flawed,
A total rewrite you need!
But if you want to show a child what poorly researched, badly written drek disguised as historical research looks like, click on this link.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Vintage Palm Pilot + Project Gutenberg = Happy Kid?
I know next to nothing about portable computers devices. I don't even own a cordless phone. But it seems to me that I could buy one of the older PDAs that doesn't do anything except hold about a book's worth of text, download a classic children's chapter book from Project Gutenberg, and keep a young book-lover happy for a day or so. I've been told one of the early Palm Pilots would be perfect for this job (and is fairly cheap off ebay), but I don't know what sort make/model/qualities to look for. Could you folks give me some advice?
Friday, May 19, 2006
Brighteyes and Sunshine Explain It All
This is a section of links to stories about my children. I'll put a link to it in the right column next time I poke at the template.
Hard Day
Mississippi Mud
"I"m too old for coloring pages."
The Grey Kitten
First Classroom
My Children -- an introduction.
The Explorers
Scorcher
Shellfish
The Paleontology of Oz
Cave Painting
Lady Ghosts
The Fossil Hunt
The Forsaken Merman
Time Flies
Review: The Miracle of Life
Another Reminder Why We Don't Unschool
A "Scheduled" Day
Hard Day
Mississippi Mud
"I"m too old for coloring pages."
The Grey Kitten
First Classroom
My Children -- an introduction.
The Explorers
Scorcher
Shellfish
The Paleontology of Oz
Cave Painting
Lady Ghosts
The Fossil Hunt
The Forsaken Merman
Time Flies
Review: The Miracle of Life
Another Reminder Why We Don't Unschool
A "Scheduled" Day
Breakfast Q&A
Happy Birthday Son
Caught With My Mouth Open.
BEM
Baking Day
Bruised
My daughter is an Unitarian
Brighteyes and the Golden Rule
How Not to Cast a Magic Spell where Sunshine learns that all words are magic words.
My Poor Little Sheltered Darlings encounter competition and bullying. Poor bully!
My Poor Little Sheltered Darlings
One of the complaints about homeschooling is that we "shelter" our children from the real world by not giving them a chance to learn about competition or about schoolyard bullies. Week before last we were at the playground with a lot of public-schooled children. There was a game of "Pirates" going on. Six year-old Brighteyes and a much bigger girl both wanted to be the Pirate Captain. The bigger girl looked at Brighteyes in her pink flowered sundress and flip-flops, and proposed a race to the top of the ship's "prow" for the title. By the time she got both feet off the ground Brighteyes was sitting on the prow.
Then a boy half a head taller than Brighteyes tried to steal her flip-flop. She told him no, go away. He tried again. She kicked him in the chest. He swung at her. She kicked him in the jaw. He ran away crying. I told Brighteyes that head shots were out of bounds and made her apologize for the last blow. His parents told him he asked for it.
Yep, it really looks as if our homeschooled kids don't know anything about competition or playground bullies all right.
Then a boy half a head taller than Brighteyes tried to steal her flip-flop. She told him no, go away. He tried again. She kicked him in the chest. He swung at her. She kicked him in the jaw. He ran away crying. I told Brighteyes that head shots were out of bounds and made her apologize for the last blow. His parents told him he asked for it.
Yep, it really looks as if our homeschooled kids don't know anything about competition or playground bullies all right.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Some pesky illness has been sneaking up on me. Between headaches, fatigue, a sore throat, and a huge thirst, the symptoms are more annoying than debilitating. I've haven't been able to do lessons for the past two days though. When I woke up today I felt better, but very tired. Then came this morning:
6:30 - Get husband off
7:30 - Girls are awake and raring to go. Feed them breakfast.
8:00 - Get girls cleaned up. Explain that Mommy has to go back to bed. Lay down. Pass out without even taking any medicine.
8:15 - 11:00 - Sleep, interrupted by huge thirst, girls jumping on bed and talking to me, and girls knocking over piles of school books. Keep going back to sleep and dreaming of children I don't have to feed.
11:00 - Awake to Brighteye's terrier barking madly from the corner of my bed. Go up front to see if it's the mail. Nobody there. Can't figure the dog's problem out. Try to get back to sleep. Dog keeps on barking.
11:30 - Figure out the dog's problem. I've been cleaning up the bedroom. Now he can stand on the corner of the bed, see his reflection in the mirror, and bark at it. Decide cleanliness is overrated.
11:35 - Drink a cola so I can find the energy to open a can of soup. Check the mail. Find Liping Ma's Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States -- a slim but very dense 150 pages. Also find Benjamin Bloom's Developing Talent in Young People -- all 572 pages of it, and it's a paperback. I don't know if it has any good quotes, but as heavy as it is I could always use it as a club. Decide I'm not up to any light reading this afternoon.
I'm happy to say the girls did a very impressive job of helping Mommy wash dishes and letting Mommy rest for a 5 year old and a 6 year old. I'm very pleased with how they are starting to do things without me standing over their shoulders.
Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.
6:30 - Get husband off
7:30 - Girls are awake and raring to go. Feed them breakfast.
8:00 - Get girls cleaned up. Explain that Mommy has to go back to bed. Lay down. Pass out without even taking any medicine.
8:15 - 11:00 - Sleep, interrupted by huge thirst, girls jumping on bed and talking to me, and girls knocking over piles of school books. Keep going back to sleep and dreaming of children I don't have to feed.
11:00 - Awake to Brighteye's terrier barking madly from the corner of my bed. Go up front to see if it's the mail. Nobody there. Can't figure the dog's problem out. Try to get back to sleep. Dog keeps on barking.
11:30 - Figure out the dog's problem. I've been cleaning up the bedroom. Now he can stand on the corner of the bed, see his reflection in the mirror, and bark at it. Decide cleanliness is overrated.
11:35 - Drink a cola so I can find the energy to open a can of soup. Check the mail. Find Liping Ma's Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States -- a slim but very dense 150 pages. Also find Benjamin Bloom's Developing Talent in Young People -- all 572 pages of it, and it's a paperback. I don't know if it has any good quotes, but as heavy as it is I could always use it as a club. Decide I'm not up to any light reading this afternoon.
I'm happy to say the girls did a very impressive job of helping Mommy wash dishes and letting Mommy rest for a 5 year old and a 6 year old. I'm very pleased with how they are starting to do things without me standing over their shoulders.
Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.
WTM first-Grade Zoology Review
We just finished 22 weeks on animals. WTM has no specific recommendations on how to organize it; so I pulled out our history "spine", the huge Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia Of World History, and used it to introduce the animals in the order that they first evolved. We would read about the first appearance, discuss how they differed from earlier life forms, then go over to The Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia to read about modern versions of them. When there was more than one choice, or when I felt the area needed more attention, she could pick out specific examples to study. Here's the order I used:
- Microscopic Animals
- Jellyfish
- Worms
- Shellfish
- Jointed Shellfish of her choice
- Fish
- Fish of her choice
- Insects
- Spiders
- Amphibians
- Amphibian of her choice
- Reptiles
- Reptile of her choice
- Birds
- Bird of her choice
- Mammals
- Platypus
- Marsupial of her choice
- Placental of her choice
- Placental of her choice
- Placental of her choice
- Chimpanzees
They learned a lot about animals and got a basic understanding of evolution. Not bad.
The only supplementary material WTM recommended was some animal coloring books. These looked good, but weren't that useful. These days you can pull a growing number of quality coloring pages of animals off the internet, and we ended up using those more often.
Next up is 10-12 weeks of Human Biology. After spending weeks trying to figure out what to teach and in what order, I had a flash of truly inspired genius and dumped it all on my husband. He's got multiple degrees in Biology and both college and public school teaching experience, he can handle that part.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Hanging Out at PHC
I've been talking to a some students at Patrick Henry College over here. I'm impressed with some of them.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Gum Tree Festival
Saturday morning we went on a field trip with the Northeast Mississippi Rock and Gem Society to a limestone quarry on a fossilized sea bed. My husband discussed his upcoming soldering demo. The girls had fun running up and down collecting oyster shell fossils. I got a chance to speak to another adult while a third adult kept the girls busy several yards away. In short, a fun time was had by all.
That afternoon we went to the Gum Tree Festival. Previously this Festival has been dominated by the buy-and-resale crowd, but this year they gave those folks a separate show on the other side of town the week before. Only artists and crafters were showing their wares, in addition to a children's dance recital and a songwriting contest. There was a Children's Activity section as well, not as good as the one in the Delta had been but nothing to sneeze at. We sampled King's Barbecue, a local eatery -- good chicken, tough cole slaw. By then the girls were too tired even to go on the Moon Walk (excuse me, the "Wacky Castle"), so it was time to go home.
That afternoon we went to the Gum Tree Festival. Previously this Festival has been dominated by the buy-and-resale crowd, but this year they gave those folks a separate show on the other side of town the week before. Only artists and crafters were showing their wares, in addition to a children's dance recital and a songwriting contest. There was a Children's Activity section as well, not as good as the one in the Delta had been but nothing to sneeze at. We sampled King's Barbecue, a local eatery -- good chicken, tough cole slaw. By then the girls were too tired even to go on the Moon Walk (excuse me, the "Wacky Castle"), so it was time to go home.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Mind-Rotting Trivia
The world's leading exporter of horse gear is India. I guess sacred cows make the best saddles.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Minimus Worksheet Template, Chapter 3, Part 1
Now we get to verb endings.
New Nouns: slave girl
New Verbs: you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling
New Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
New Adjective: new
New Adverbs: suddenly
Noun Bank: mother, father, daughter, son, small child, cat, mouse, sister, soul, birthday, gift, house, garden, dress, soldier, cloak, wasp, whale, dolphin, horse, rabbit, pig, dinner, fish sauce, elephant, swan, peacock, parrot, fish, bull, dog, cow, hen, fox, cat, frog, badger, bird, cheese, bedroom, sir, slave girl
Adjective Bank: famous, beautiful, dirty, messy, tired, excellent, fat, big, small, very big, very small, friendly, naughty, good, very good, clever, very clever, beautiful, lazy, energetic, new
Verb Bank: I am, we are, you are (singular), you are (plural), is, are, will be, I have, sit (plural), come (singular), sit down (singular), get up, silent (plural), smiles (singular) you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling
Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
Adverb Bank: now, once upon a time, of course, especially, suddenly
Pronoun Bank: I, we, everyone, my
Conjunction Bank: and, but
Interrogatives: who, what, how
Greetings Bank: Hello, Hello (plural), Goodbye, Dear (female), Dear (male), Dearest (female)
Exclamation Bank: yeah!, oh dear
Negative Bank: not, don't
(Noun) (verb).
(Plural noun) (plural verb).
(Adverb) (noun) (verb).
New Nouns: slave girl
New Verbs: you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling
New Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
New Adjective: new
New Adverbs: suddenly
Noun Bank: mother, father, daughter, son, small child, cat, mouse, sister, soul, birthday, gift, house, garden, dress, soldier, cloak, wasp, whale, dolphin, horse, rabbit, pig, dinner, fish sauce, elephant, swan, peacock, parrot, fish, bull, dog, cow, hen, fox, cat, frog, badger, bird, cheese, bedroom, sir, slave girl
Adjective Bank: famous, beautiful, dirty, messy, tired, excellent, fat, big, small, very big, very small, friendly, naughty, good, very good, clever, very clever, beautiful, lazy, energetic, new
Verb Bank: I am, we are, you are (singular), you are (plural), is, are, will be, I have, sit (plural), come (singular), sit down (singular), get up, silent (plural), smiles (singular) you are doing, I am writing, you are writing, he/she is writing, they are writing, I am watching, he/she is watching, they are watching, I am cleaning, he/she is cleaning, I am reading, he/she is reading, I am sweeping, he/she is entering, they are working, they are smiling
Verb Endings: I - o, you - s, he/she - t, they - nt
Adverb Bank: now, once upon a time, of course, especially, suddenly
Pronoun Bank: I, we, everyone, my
Conjunction Bank: and, but
Interrogatives: who, what, how
Greetings Bank: Hello, Hello (plural), Goodbye, Dear (female), Dear (male), Dearest (female)
Exclamation Bank: yeah!, oh dear
Negative Bank: not, don't
(Noun) (verb).
(Plural noun) (plural verb).
(Adverb) (noun) (verb).
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Ripples
Our town had a tiny men's gym that was about to go under for lack of business. Not many people used it, many rural Southerners grew up "working out" with hand tools.
Last winter a group of teenage jocks thought about joining it. They wanted to build their muscles so they could do good at the state athletic competitions and attract scholarship money, and the little time they had in the high school gym wasn't cutting it. But working out in the private gym before supper would mean giving up their afternoon TV watching, and they weren't sure they wanted to make that sacrifice. What to do?
Some of the boys are in my husband's science class. One of them said, "Doc doesn't watch TV. If he can live without it, I can live without it." The other boys agreed. They all bought memberships and started going.
The extra memberships pulled the owner back from the verge of bankruptcy and enabled him to refurbish the building. Business is better than ever. The full story eventually made its way back to us.
Everything we do makes ripples. Sometimes those ripples end up in the most astonishing places.
Last winter a group of teenage jocks thought about joining it. They wanted to build their muscles so they could do good at the state athletic competitions and attract scholarship money, and the little time they had in the high school gym wasn't cutting it. But working out in the private gym before supper would mean giving up their afternoon TV watching, and they weren't sure they wanted to make that sacrifice. What to do?
Some of the boys are in my husband's science class. One of them said, "Doc doesn't watch TV. If he can live without it, I can live without it." The other boys agreed. They all bought memberships and started going.
The extra memberships pulled the owner back from the verge of bankruptcy and enabled him to refurbish the building. Business is better than ever. The full story eventually made its way back to us.
Everything we do makes ripples. Sometimes those ripples end up in the most astonishing places.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Runway Hysteria
There's nothing like a runway fashion show to remind one of just how foolish people can be when given the chance. In the name of "market research," my husband got me to sit down and watch the fall show of a major European designer. I was doing good for a while. I made it through the gargantuan hats with the tiny peephole in the brim so you could see out. I made it through the oversized fur hats that went halfway down the back. But the long-haired fur miniskirt was my undoing. I lost it completely at that point and never regained it.
Long-haired fur miniskirt!
Long-haired fur miniskirt!
ROFL! Long-haired fur miniskirt!
Long-haired fur miniskirt!
Long-haired fur miniskirt!
ROFL! Long-haired fur miniskirt!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Golden Quote
Cross-posted at The Homeschool Cafe.
The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved details how hi-tech classroom learning gadgets have left our young people less educated than any previous generation. In the process it makes a lot of statements that indirectly support homeschooling. I'll post a full review later (at 500 pages it's liable to be very full), but buried on page 399 I found one of the dreams of a homeschooling parent: a Golden Quote that proves just how much more effective homeschooling is than mass schooling. Homeschoolers use a one-on-one teaching method that is known in the trade as tutoring.
"In study after study, whenever tutoring is matched against some competing pedagogy, including technology, tutoring wins handily. In his own research (Benjamin) Bloom found that tutored students outdistance 98 percent of those taught in conventional groups settings.(7)"
98 percent!??!!!! No wonder we're so damn good!
The citation is: "The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search For Methods of Instruction as Effective as One-on-one Tutoring," by Benjamin S. Bloom, Educational Researcher, Vol. 13 (6), pp. 4-16, 1984. Apparently this study has become the gold standard on the power of tutoring.
I went digging. I couldn't find the original article online; Educational Researcher's online archives don't go back that far. I did find some synopses of the original article. The first synopsis explains why it's called "The 2 Sigma problem:
But wait! Is homeschooling really the same as one-on-one tutoring? Ask a homeschooling parent if this definition sounds familiar:
Unfortunately I couldn't find an interview with Bloom. I did find some of his quotes. I also found the book he published the year after "The 2 Sigma Problem", Developing Talent in Young People, which looks at the tremendous results which highly gifted young athletes and musicians achieved through a combination of supportive parenting, and a progression of learning from solid basics to more complex skills which Bloom calls "mastery learning" but which sounds suspiciously like the trivium so near and dear to many homeschoolers. Interestingly, this program only outdistances 85% of regular students in a classroom setting, whereas one-on-one tutoring itself outdistances 98% of those students. Gee, what sort of performance boost would happen if you combine supportive parenting, one-on-one tutoring, and the trivium -- er, mastery learning? (Can you tell I'm smirking?)
Ironically, not much seems to have been done with Bloom's research. A number of attempts have been made to produce a computerized tutor-equivalent. Their failures are outlined in the book I got the quote from. No machine can possibly be anywhere near as flexible as a human being.
The only homeschooling article I could find that references Bloom is from a Dutch study. Bloom's research is woefully underutilized in defense of homeschooling.
The inevitable comeback is that such results are only obtainable with specially trained tutors. That argument is not supported by the data. A good tutor is one who pays attention to the student and adapts their learning approach to meet the individual student's needs. Anyone who has reasonably good communication skills can do that. There are also many materials available to help both tutor and student look up what they need to know.
A key area is teaching students how to learn; this skill is best taught one-on-one. A student who has learned how to learn knows when, where and how to find what they need. That student and his or her tutor are then in an excellent position to evaluate when or if they need outside expertise in specific subjects.
But hey! Tutored students outdistance 98% of group-schooled students. That means that even if homeschooling parents don't make absolutely perfect tutors, they still stand head and shoulders above the school system.
TO RECAP: An average student who is individually tutored will outdistance 98% of the students in a classroom setting, or do two standard deviations (2 sigmas) better. No classroom teaching method yet devised comes anywhere near that figure. This study means that a learning disabled student who is individually tutored will do as well as an average student in a classroom setting. An average student who is individually tutored will do as well as a gifted student in a classroom setting. A gifted student who is individually tutored will go off the scale. Since two standard deviations is an awful lot of wiggle room, this study also means that an average parent who makes a reasonable effort at tutoring his or her children will do a better job than the best classrooms in the country.
The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved details how hi-tech classroom learning gadgets have left our young people less educated than any previous generation. In the process it makes a lot of statements that indirectly support homeschooling. I'll post a full review later (at 500 pages it's liable to be very full), but buried on page 399 I found one of the dreams of a homeschooling parent: a Golden Quote that proves just how much more effective homeschooling is than mass schooling. Homeschoolers use a one-on-one teaching method that is known in the trade as tutoring.
"In study after study, whenever tutoring is matched against some competing pedagogy, including technology, tutoring wins handily. In his own research (Benjamin) Bloom found that tutored students outdistance 98 percent of those taught in conventional groups settings.(7)"
98 percent!??!!!! No wonder we're so damn good!
The citation is: "The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search For Methods of Instruction as Effective as One-on-one Tutoring," by Benjamin S. Bloom, Educational Researcher, Vol. 13 (6), pp. 4-16, 1984. Apparently this study has become the gold standard on the power of tutoring.
I went digging. I couldn't find the original article online; Educational Researcher's online archives don't go back that far. I did find some synopses of the original article. The first synopsis explains why it's called "The 2 Sigma problem:
If one looks at a "conventional classroom" that uses the traditional lecture approach (Bloom chose classes of about 30 students for his study), the outcomes of both learning and cognitive development of higher mental processes produced by such classes can be expressed as scaled in at the 50th percentile equivalent. By contrast, the outcomes of tutoring scale at close to 100% or about two standard deviations (2s) beyond the level of achievement in conventional classrooms! This achievement has further striking implications: students who learn through tutoring don't flunk out, stress out, or drop out. This means that many students who have been consigned to the categories of "low achiever", "not bright enough", or even "unteachable" are students who can, in fact, succeed.This article is very well written, apparently for helping entering college students find tutors. A second synopsis shows Bloom's actual table. A third article states Bloom's challenge to the educational community: "Under the practical considerations of a class of 30 or so students, how can one approach 2 sigma achievementeivement gains of professional tutoring?"
But wait! Is homeschooling really the same as one-on-one tutoring? Ask a homeschooling parent if this definition sounds familiar:
The concept of tutoring is an old one, perhaps one of the oldest of all human teaching and development tools. As Jenkins and Jenkins described the origins of tutoring in their paper Educational Leadership (1987), "Tutorial instruction: it was parents teaching their offspring how to make a fire and to hunt and adolescents instructing younger siblings about edible berries and roots, it was probably the first pedagogy (teaching) among primitive societies." Tutoring is one of the fundamental foundations of physical, emotional, social and academic growth. It is considered one of the most successful of all teaching methodologies. Quality tutoring reaches beyond singular academic subjects by adapting to the needs of the learner and doing so in a fashion the learner can understand. It works best when it utilizes and takes into account the concept of learning as a whole mind and body experience; it involves all the senses, the environment, the community, family and specific requirements of the learner.(emphasis mine.)There are thousands of homeschooling stories inonlinet and onlne, and all the ones I've read sound just like that definition. A fourth article lists specific groups that tutoring can help.
Tutoring is defined as the act, art, or process of imparting knowledge and skills. In the last one hundred years the term tutor, especially in western countries, has closely been identified as an individual who works with a single child or small group of children as opposed to a teacher who tends to manage with larger numbers of students. Tutoring has further been distinguished from early stage education and development. It is now viewed as a separate vocation focused almost entirely on academics. Most academic-oriented tutors work with children K through 12 and beyond while parents or nannies and caregiver services tend to focus on development of infants and young children. Individuals from both groups may still act as tutors and manage developmental activities during a child's early years.
Academic tutoring takes on a variety of different classifications: peer tutoring, age tutoring, certified tutors and tutoring by certified teachers. Many tutors wone with-on-one with students while others work with three, five or ten students at a time. The ability of the tutor to impart knowledge, as later discussed, may have less to do with the age or experience level of the tutor and more to do with individual attention and the ability to create learning strategies in a student. Good tutors follow the student, not the curriculum. (emphasis mine.)
Unfortunately I couldn't find an interview with Bloom. I did find some of his quotes. I also found the book he published the year after "The 2 Sigma Problem", Developing Talent in Young People, which looks at the tremendous results which highly gifted young athletes and musicians achieved through a combination of supportive parenting, and a progression of learning from solid basics to more complex skills which Bloom calls "mastery learning" but which sounds suspiciously like the trivium so near and dear to many homeschoolers. Interestingly, this program only outdistances 85% of regular students in a classroom setting, whereas one-on-one tutoring itself outdistances 98% of those students. Gee, what sort of performance boost would happen if you combine supportive parenting, one-on-one tutoring, and the trivium -- er, mastery learning? (Can you tell I'm smirking?)
Ironically, not much seems to have been done with Bloom's research. A number of attempts have been made to produce a computerized tutor-equivalent. Their failures are outlined in the book I got the quote from. No machine can possibly be anywhere near as flexible as a human being.
The only homeschooling article I could find that references Bloom is from a Dutch study. Bloom's research is woefully underutilized in defense of homeschooling.
The inevitable comeback is that such results are only obtainable with specially trained tutors. That argument is not supported by the data. A good tutor is one who pays attention to the student and adapts their learning approach to meet the individual student's needs. Anyone who has reasonably good communication skills can do that. There are also many materials available to help both tutor and student look up what they need to know.
A key area is teaching students how to learn; this skill is best taught one-on-one. A student who has learned how to learn knows when, where and how to find what they need. That student and his or her tutor are then in an excellent position to evaluate when or if they need outside expertise in specific subjects.
But hey! Tutored students outdistance 98% of group-schooled students. That means that even if homeschooling parents don't make absolutely perfect tutors, they still stand head and shoulders above the school system.
TO RECAP: An average student who is individually tutored will outdistance 98% of the students in a classroom setting, or do two standard deviations (2 sigmas) better. No classroom teaching method yet devised comes anywhere near that figure. This study means that a learning disabled student who is individually tutored will do as well as an average student in a classroom setting. An average student who is individually tutored will do as well as a gifted student in a classroom setting. A gifted student who is individually tutored will go off the scale. Since two standard deviations is an awful lot of wiggle room, this study also means that an average parent who makes a reasonable effort at tutoring his or her children will do a better job than the best classrooms in the country.
Monday, May 01, 2006
How Not to Cast a Magic Spell
Beltane 2006 - Five year-old Sunshine had done her lessons and was bored. Mommy was supposed to finish the sundresses she was making for Sunshine and her sister, but she wasn't working on them. She was wasting her time reading e-mail instead. Sunshine needed a way to get Mommy off the computer and on the sewing machine! Just telling Mommy to do that didn't always work. Hmmm, maybe there was some magical way to indicate to Mommy what she was supposed to be doing. Maybe if she imitated Mommy sewing, Mommy would get the idea. Sunshine looked around Mommy's sewing table. There were Mommy's scissors and the fabric bias tapes Mommy had spent hours making yesterday. Perfect! Sunshine picked up the scissors and got to work.
By the time Mommy noticed the snipping sound and turned around, all the bias tapes she'd so carefully made were in half-inch pieces.
Mommy had a coniption.
Sunshine learned several valuable things. Among her lessons were:
Don't touch scissors without getting permission first.
Don't touch anything of Mommy's or Daddy's without getting permission first.
Don't cut anything without getting permission first.
If you want a scrap to cut, ask for one. Mommy has several, but you must ask to find out which one it's okay to cut.
All words are magic. Use them to tell others what you are going to do.
Mommy doesn't like surprises.
By the time Mommy noticed the snipping sound and turned around, all the bias tapes she'd so carefully made were in half-inch pieces.
Mommy had a coniption.
Sunshine learned several valuable things. Among her lessons were:
Don't touch scissors without getting permission first.
Don't touch anything of Mommy's or Daddy's without getting permission first.
Don't cut anything without getting permission first.
If you want a scrap to cut, ask for one. Mommy has several, but you must ask to find out which one it's okay to cut.
All words are magic. Use them to tell others what you are going to do.
Mommy doesn't like surprises.
Starting Back
After taking April off, we got back to a slow start today. No major problems, although the girls did have to remember not to throw fusses.
If it were up to Brighteyes and especially Sunshine, we would have been back at lessons after the first week. But I fell into a major depression at the start of spring. I've had chronic depression and PTSD since childhood. These days I can usually take care of myself, but this year I was too exhausted to do the maintenance. I fell off the deep end, and I'm only now starting to climb back.
I usually don't talk much about my mental health problems. My mother hated it whenever I brought it up as a child. She would berate me for mentioning it; or for "giving up", being "soft", being "lazy", and so on. Of course, she was the main reason I came down with depression and PTSD. No wonder she hated seeing the signs of her handiwork.
But I'm almost 40. That's far too old to blame my problems on my childhood. I knew the signs. I knew I had to devote some time out of the day to taking care of myself, and I knew what would happen if I didn't. I screwed up because I can't stand having a chronic condition that I have to monitor and work on all the time. It feels undignified, to have to constantly attend to my own Inner Baby. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but it's not an easy thing to change.
So we're back with lessons. Unschooling is even more exhausting for me than lessons, because these girls go at super-sonic speeds. At least with lessons we don't tear off down quite so many rabbit runs.
If it were up to Brighteyes and especially Sunshine, we would have been back at lessons after the first week. But I fell into a major depression at the start of spring. I've had chronic depression and PTSD since childhood. These days I can usually take care of myself, but this year I was too exhausted to do the maintenance. I fell off the deep end, and I'm only now starting to climb back.
I usually don't talk much about my mental health problems. My mother hated it whenever I brought it up as a child. She would berate me for mentioning it; or for "giving up", being "soft", being "lazy", and so on. Of course, she was the main reason I came down with depression and PTSD. No wonder she hated seeing the signs of her handiwork.
But I'm almost 40. That's far too old to blame my problems on my childhood. I knew the signs. I knew I had to devote some time out of the day to taking care of myself, and I knew what would happen if I didn't. I screwed up because I can't stand having a chronic condition that I have to monitor and work on all the time. It feels undignified, to have to constantly attend to my own Inner Baby. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but it's not an easy thing to change.
So we're back with lessons. Unschooling is even more exhausting for me than lessons, because these girls go at super-sonic speeds. At least with lessons we don't tear off down quite so many rabbit runs.
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