Something about Serenity

A friend asked me the other day; “What is it about Firefly?” For those of you poor souls unfamiliar, Firefly was a science fiction series of a different color. It combined a high tech future with low tech, western themes. Spaceships and old fashioned shoot outs at high noon; it was brilliant. It was cancelled after only a single season due to the network that aired it, and I won’t name it since I’m sure their lawyers are crazy like…a Fox. The network seemed determined to have it fail from the moment it premiered, airing the episodes in the wrong order. This did not however deter the fans from falling instantly in love with the first Sci-Fi in a decade to give us something truly unique but, back to my point.

My friend had watched a couple episodes and liked them but never really paid attention. Then again he doesn’t do a lot of Television period, never has. We were discussing Sci-Fi series other than Star Trek, his personal favorite, and I was waxing all nostalgic about the short lived and dearly loved series. Cowboys in Space; what’s not to love? The discussion of course led me to enumerate the ways in which this show impacted my consciousness and imprinted itself on my psyche.

Firefly is all about the characters. First and foremost, before the eye catching special effects and memorable score, the characters are what drove this show and pulled all of us in from the first few moments. The Captain of the unlikely band, Malcolm Reynolds or Mal, was the centerpiece. Grumpy and pessimistic, irreverent and loyal he was the glue and the one who made us all dream of being a member of his crew. While he often made noise about looking out only for himself and his crew, he often went out of his way to help others and, despite his protests, collected a motley band of society’s rejects around him. Mal, like his first mate Zoe, was scarred by a bitter defeat in a war. Rather than submit to an oppressive government he got himself a ship and chose the outskirts of society and life as a sometimes successful thief and smuggler. His ship Serenity, a Firefly class vessel so named for its distinctive look, became home among the stars and those that gathered round him his family.

Zoe was Mal’s first mate on Serenity and his comrade in the war, fighting and surrendering together. She could be as hard as Mal, sometimes more so, and understood the dark, practical core at the heart of everything Mal did. At the same time she was also his conscience. Zoe provided temperance when the darkness would sometimes get too close to her Captain, reminding him that it’s okay to be human. Also his rock, Zoe would stand with him when all others turned away, even if he was wrong though she was unafraid to tell him so.

Wash. Where to begin? He was Zoe’s husband and charmed pilot of Serenity. As he once remarked, people don’t always get Zoe and him. Where Zoe is patient and level headed, Wash is glib and often childlike. He was frequently dismayed by what he saw as Zoe’s unwillingness to do anything without Mal’s approval. They spent a lot of time arguing that point and Zoe usually won with her marriage to Wash as proof that she doesn’t always do what Mal wants. This isn’t to say they weren’t happily married; Zoe and Wash were perfect for each other and devoted. Wash was our resident comic relief, determined to point out the grim truth of any situation and confront it with a smirk…or juggling goslings, with Wash you just never knew.

The man they call Jayne. Jayne was a thug. A thug we loved for his short temper, greedy ways and uncomfortable love for Vera, his very favorite gun. The crew of Serenity would all agree the only thing scarier than Reavers is Jayne getting control of the ship. As concerned as Jayne was with profit and looking out for himself, he would sometimes display a heart at the strangest moments. More rarely even a smidgen of guilt for something he had done. He was like a man learning about himself with his shipmates as his teachers. Jayne was not an attentive student and we loved him for that too. He’s not good. He’s not evil. He’s mainly out for himself and sometimes that means helping others…or being browbeat into it by Mal.

Kaylee, the heart of Serenity; She not only kept the ship running but was the innocence for her shipmates that they had all long ago left behind. Kaylee was far from naïve, just a firm believer that everyone had a redeeming quality. She was little sister, den mother and engine monkey wrapped in an energetic package with a hopeless crush on Simon, the ships Doctor.

River. Intelligent and naïve. Meek and fierce. Intuitive and oblivious. She is a study in contradictions. She spent years as an Alliance guinea pig while they studied and dissected her brain to create a psychic weapon. They succeeded but drove her a little mad in the process. Her brother Simon rescued her and escaped with her to Serenity where they have both found an uneasy home, still hunted by the Alliance. River was rarely stable and prone to say things no one understood that would later have relevance.

Simon. Wholly devoted to protecting his sister and healing her of whatever the Alliance had done to her mind, so devoted it kept him from admitting his affection for Kaylee for years. Simon was a child prodigy whose talents at medicine serve the crew of Serenity well. Sadly for him, as talented as he is with a scalpel he is lost in social situations.

Inara. A registered companion, she provides Serenity with a certain respectability when they make berth allowing the crew to go places they might otherwise be barred from. Very handy for a band of thieves and smugglers. She is the soul of the crew, very Buddhist in her practices. She’s elegant where the rest of the crew is coarse but she never seems to see it, or look down on them for it. Her feelings for Mal, and his for her, are a constant frustration for them both.

Sheppard Book was both moral compass and enigma wrapped up together. Every Firefly fan has spent hours at least, I’m sure, debating where Sheppard came from, what he had done before turning up on the planet Persephone and crossing paths with Kaylee. He was a man of God with the skills of an assassin or perhaps a spy? Or both. He often did his best to nudge Mal onto the straighter path.

No good show is complete without its complement of recurring bad guys. Firefly had several to choose from. The Alliance, which had won the war against the Browncoats, was a constant irritant for Mal and his crew. Like any good victor, they looked down upon those who had fought on the other side. Mal’s brown coat was his subtle way of saying that though he had surrendered, he hadn’t given up.

Reavers were once described as men gone mad at the edge of space. They were brutal, unthinking and ravenous. All humanity had been stripped from them and they were the ever present boogiemen in the series. The mystery of their origins remained until the movie Serenity. They were a plague on the outer colonies, laying waste to whole settlements and decimating the crews of unlucky ships in space.

Firefly on the surface seemed very straightforward but was filled with complex themes, stories, mysteries and characters. Each episode gave us something new to ponder and often something to laugh at as well, even in the worst moments. All of us who’ve loved this show dream each day of seeing it one day return. We felt a part of the family of Crew aboard Serenity, sharing their fears and hopes and camaraderie. Alas, it will likely never come to be and we are left with a single season, a movie and a few graphic novels to sate our need.

Consigned to the special hell for shows a network didn’t want in the first place and doomed to failure before it began; Cry baby cry.

Friendly debate: A thing of the past?

Why is it that these days conservatives and liberals can’t seem to discuss their views without bile and sometimes hate? What has changed? I remember once being able to sit down and have lively political debates with people on both sides and the discussions rarely were anything but friendly and often humorous. Now however, there is a clear difference in how the two sides approach debate. In my own personal experience, those on the liberal side are generally willing to discuss not only the flaws of conservatives but those of liberals as well. Conservatives on the other hand are no longer willing to do this. They not only are unwilling to discuss the flaws but will not stand for anyone else pointing them out.

I think this is a symptom of only having one side of the story. I watch both sides of the media. I typically pay attention to MSNBC and Fox News. Getting both sides of the story is the only way to get a clear picture, never more so than in the last few years. While both of these agencies routinely point fingers at each other, only one of them also routinely points out their own mistakes and apologizes for them. Hint: It’s not Fox news. For example the case of Shirley Sherrod. Fox news picked up and aired a clip of a speech she had given, a completely out of context clip that resulted in the White House over-reacting without all the facts and sacking her. Once the entire video of her speech came to light the reactions of Fox vs. MSNBC were very different. MSNBC pointed fingers at Fox and apologized for their own mistake in not fully researching the video. Fox pointed fingers at MSNBC, the guy who released the video and the White House and…well that’s all they did really. If they ever apologized on air for the disastrous results of their failure to fact check, I didn’t see it. I did however see every one of the MSNBC pundits apologize for said failure.

I know quite a few people who only watch one or the other. Some of my friends are Republicans and only watch Fox News. They’ve never turned on MSNBC, have never actually watched for themselves yet loudly condemn the entire liberal news network based solely on what they are told on Fox news. A perfect example of these conservative blinders is Sarah Palin. You cannot honestly look me in the face and tell me that woman is not often comic. She is a very prominent political figure and in some ways expert at manipulating the political machine for herself and her party. She is also, let’s be honest, naïve in many ways and frankly self-absorbed with a victim complex. I was never more disgusted with her than when she released her video after the shootings in Tucson and used it to condemn the liberal media for attacking her over it. She failed to rise above the selfish at a time when she could have set an example. Discussing Palin with a Republican in anything but a favorable light is like waving a red flag to a bull. They rise to her defense whether she’s right or wrong.

By the same token I feel the President failed me in his State of the Union. While I found it a stirring speech for the most part and appreciated his repeated requests for us to look to the future, I am disappointed that he made no mention of how to deal with the escalating gun violence in our country at a time when it is clearly at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts. He missed a step there. Reassuring us that the White House has a plan was what he should have done, rather than avoiding the issue to ensure higher poll ratings on the speech. Oh, and Mrs. Palin, you’re interview after the SOTU on Fox is something you should apologize for in my opinion. Taking the very positive and much needed message of Win the Future and turning it into an internet shorthand joke was frankly ridiculous. Yet another missed opportunity to set an example.

When did this happen? When did people stop wanting all the facts? Are there extremists on MSNBC? Of course there are! Keith Olberman and Ed Schultz come immediately to mind. Ed in particular is the Liberal counterpart to Glenn Beck….without the now constant end of the world, Nazi American invasion paranoia. Ed’s partisan rants, while entertaining, should be taken with a grain of salt that just maybe the people or party he’s trashing do have some redeeming qualities.

It seems as though the current lack of communication between our leading parties in Washington has spread like an infection to all of us around the country. While Democrats and Liberals look for ways to get the Republicans to rejoin the team while simultaneously poking at them for being hide-bound, the conservatives and Republicans are determined to ignore them and play with their own toys while poking at the other side for being spineless. This would be fine but for the fact our government simply doesn’t function unless they all play together. It’s kind of the point, don’t you think? When Republicans are using the Filibuster and even just the threat of one as a favored weapon to stall our government, what message does that send to the rest of us? That discussion is not the answer. That we should simply refuse to speak until we get what we want and pretend we are not part of the problem. Hell of a message to send.

My Dad and I, metaphorically speaking, are standing on opposite sides of the country when it comes to politics. I’m not sure when that happened. Somehow over the years we’ve drifted to opposite sides. We’re no longer able to discuss politics and I’m sorry to say it’s partly because he’s one of the people only listening to one side of the discussion. By his own admission, he’s told me he doesn’t watch the liberal media and so I ask, how can he know they’re biased, waging a war of hate speech or skewing facts while believing the conservative media is honest and bi-partisan? Because they tell him so.  I love you Dad. I respect you Dad. I wish we could once more discuss politics like we used to, without taking sides but seeing the argument as a whole, the flaws and benefits on both sides of the aisle. I was once guilty of only watching one side of the discussion. Only the Liberal media, who incidentally likewise accuse the conservative media of waging a war of hate speech. A friend pointed out to me during one argument that I couldn’t possibly make a point worth making if I wasn’t willing to listen to both sides. He was right and I’ve since made a point of watching both.

I do believe the Liberal media is better about fact checking their stories. The President’s trip to India last year and the furor with which Fox news went after him for it is a good example. One person said she had ‘heard’ he would be spending billions and taking three quarters of the Navy with him and Fox ran with it. Citing “Sources tell us”…but didn’t actually bother to contact the White House and find out for themselves if it was true, which it wasn’t.

Do I prefer the liberal over the conservative? Yes. Do I think the Liberal side is always right? Hell no. Do I only watch the liberal media to get my information? No. I often do research of my own on things I’m told by the media. I’m not a blind supporter of any party or person. Once upon a time I liked McCain…but he’s flip flopped one too many times on campaign promises and his own views for me to take him seriously these days or trust him in office. Don’t ask don’t tell was a defining moment for me in regards to McCain. While running for president he vowed more than once that he would not rest until it was repealed. After losing his run for the White House, he then became a large and vocal roadblock to the repeal. Perhaps he forgot he once promised many Americans that he would fight to end the discrimination against them?

I don’t think there is a ‘right’ side when it comes to politics or a ‘right’ person to back. So much about politics is personal preference and opinion to begin with. I do think we should all try to remember that it’s alright to have a difference of opinion, that not everyone must agree with you or be wrong. I’d like to go back to when I could laugh about Palin’s ever growing list of Tweeted Typos and not be attacked for doing so and called ‘un-American’. Yes, I have been. Just for that. I’d like my husbands’ family and me to be able to discuss politics at the holidays again without having to quickly shush and change the subject when his aunt and uncle arrive because they can NOT discuss it anymore without his Uncle having a fit of temper and slamming out of the house.

These are my opinions, how I feel about things. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong but this is how I feel and there is nothing wrong with that nor expressing it. If you disagree with me, then disagree with me! Discuss it with me! Try to win me over. It has been done you know. Win me over without resorting to the need to attack and dismiss me for believing differently than you. That is not a discussion. Friendly debate. Let’s try to remember those two words once went together well.

A day without power interlude.

Having just spent a day and a half without the luxury of power, I had nothing better to do than write and will now subject you to my cold-addled lonely ruminations through the course of the day.

***

Warm days. A blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds as the sun ducks behind one and peaks out from another. The chirping of Chickadees in the hedge fills the summery breeze as it ruffles the leaves on the trees. I sit on my kitchen counter, staring out my window, and WISH this was the day I’m having.

Instead, here I sit on my counter using the window for light to write by. Freezing rain knocked the power out the night before and I’m left using the stove to get a bit of heat in our house that has become a meat locker. The cats seem to have had an emergency meeting and have decided to fill the silence with all the noise they can make. At this point our neighbors, I’m sure, think they live next door to a herd of wildebeest. I’m not sure they’re wrong.

The freezing rain has stopped finally, replaced with driving snow in a blustery wind and I wonder if my fingers and toes will ever thaw again. Worse, I’ve discovered finally a reason NOT to bundle cable, internet and phone services. The damn router box only has a six hour battery. Once it dies, so too does the phone.

My husband had an argument with the ice this morning trying to reach a pay phone to call work. He lost. He’ll be nursing a sprained wrist and bruised ego for a while. The bruised ego on account of last night he laughed when I returned from the store and said how hard it was to walk on the ice. He very surely informed me that HE has no problem walking on the ice. I will, of course, file this incident away for future use as any good wife should.

So far today I’ve gone through most of the score of Pirates of Penzance. The cats appreciate my singing or maybe the cuddles were to distract me? Nawwww. I’ve been reduced more than once to chatting up the cats. They’re lousy conversationalists.

Also, it has been far too long since I last sat down with pen and paper rather than a keyboard. My hand is actually cramping! And to think I once used to do this so much I actually have a permanent dent in my middle finger where the pen rests. The computer age is not good for writing skills.

The waiting is the frustrating part. The power could come back in five minutes or five days and with no phone I can’t harass the power company for an estimate. Not to mention that most of the batteries in the house are rechargeable…and in need of recharging. Of course.

For someone as attached to her computer as I am this is tantamount to torture! Note to self: Contact the U.N. and turn in Mother Nature for violating the Geneva Convention. Of course violating said convention doesn’t seem to carry much weight these days. Yes, I’m rolling my eyes at my own government and a former president in particular who happily and publicly admitted to authorizing the use of torture. So much for plausible deniability, eh? Not that anyone seems to mind.

Whoops. Solitary time equals political rant. I’ll file that one away for when I’m warm again. My sister has asked for an article on Glenn Beck as she’s not familiar with him and doesn’t understand my fervent assertion that he’s bat shit crazy. That’s a technical term by the way for someone one fry short of a happy meal and in desperate need of six rolls of rubber wallpaper. Another future article.

***

My brother in law just rolled up for a quick stop to tell me most of the city is without power so who knows when we’ll get ours back. Also a message from himself to go buy a cooler and empty the fridge onto the back patio. Right. A cooler in January, cause stores love to stock those this time of year. Oh and my in-laws still have power. Lucky bastards!

***

I’ve returned from the store a bit the worse for wear. My turn to lose an argument with the ice. A limp is fashionable, right? I was right and coolers it seems are like the Dodo right now, extinct, at least until the spring. I did luck out and find a crappy little AM/FM radio. At least now I’ll have the company of human voices, other than my own, and maybe some news while I’m at it!

Watching a gentle, heavy snowfall is hypnotic really not to mention relaxing. Before you think the power deprivation is getting to me, I watch snowfall’s even when the power is on. I love them. Take a walk in a blizzard sometime. All you hear is the sound of falling snow, like a soft shushing and white is your world. It’s incredibly peaceful.

***

The prospect of returned power gets slimmer by the hour. A news report has just counted over 200,000 power outages across Ohio with 35,000 alone of those here in Columbus. To add insult to injury, evening is falling and the light fading. Time, I suppose, to light the candles and cuddles some cats for warmth.

***

Its night once more and over twenty-four hours since the power went out for good. My husband and I are camped in the kitchen boiling a pot of water to raise the room temperature at least a little. The candles flickering light emphasizes the fact that I’m going to be doing dishes for a day and a half when the power does come back on. Meanwhile, the power has been restored for everyone around us. Only our complex of townhomes remains in the dark. It’s going to be a long night again.

***

As I sat on the counter once more trying to tune the radio and my husband was out to the store finding a couple more things to add to dinner, the lights came back on! I cheered and then cheered again all the louder with a laugh as I heard the muffled happy shouts of all my neighbors as well. My husband came in the door just then and was grinning and laughing. He said he could hear what must have been the entire complex let up a cheer when the lights flashed back on. I tossed my coat on and ran down to the corner where the power crew was working to give them a hearty and happy thank you.

Now we’re cuddled up with the electric blankets while the furnace works to make this place warm again and the prospect of getting a night’s sleep without my toes freezing is almost enough to make me cry with joy.

The Tao of Teapots

I have a fetish, a love? Maybe a minor obsession. I collect teapots. Last time I counted Iwas up to twenty-one. It's more however than simply collecting for the sake of collecting. Idon't just put them on a shelf and look at them, never touching, never using. I put them tothe purpose for which they were meant and that purpose is, I think, the reason I collectthem. There is something profoundly peaceful about the act of brewing tea, pouring it from a well loved teapot and sipping while curled in my favorite chair with an old friend of a book.

It almost feels like a guilty pleasure and is something I rarely do when others are around. Taking one of my teapots down from the shelf and using it has, over the years, become like a retreat. An escape, however brief, from the course of the day. A few have been gifts but most I have found myself. I have a few generic teapots, a sterling silver teapot. One of my sisters gave me one ages back made from fired clay with oriental dragons that my husband once dropped and chipped the spout off. My mother in law gave me another of fired clay that resembles a squat tortoise like dragon. For the days I'm in need of a goofy smile I have one in the shape of a frog. There's a Winnie the Pooh teapot, a couple oriental style pots and one I found in a flea market with stylized Greek figures that I adore and I'm sure is worthless.

Of course it isn't just the teapots themselves. It's the whole of the act. Choosing the tea, brewing it, choosing the pot and filling it, pouring it out. The smell of the tea that fills the kitchen. The little curl of steam from the mouth of the pot. It's an age old ritual that seems to require you take your time. We spend every day counting each minute, marking each hour between work and play, sleep and chores. We demand everything be faster, faster, faster from our internet to our food. Making a pot of tea now and then reminds me that it's alright to slow down and not watch the clock. It gives me precious time to do that most important thing for a little while that we so often forget to do...nothing.

Life these days is fast. I highly recommend to anyone suffering the stress to go out and find a teapot that speaks to you. If tea isn't your thing, a French Press and some good coffee will do just as well...but that's another article.

My duty as a human being.

I have been convinced for a very long time that people simply do not care what happens to others unless they're directly related to them. Not my family, not my problem being the silent motto of people everywhere, but certainly here in the states. I have seen children beaten in public malls while passersby studiously look the other way and walk quickly past, inured to the pain of another because they don't know them and so they don't matter.

I've experienced this personally myself. My first year in this city I was hit while riding my bike. At a busy intersection, in a parking lot with cars lined up to get out. There must have been twenty witnesses to see me hit, thrown through the air and thirty feet from my bike. I don't remember being hit. I woke staring up at blue sky, bruised and bloody from my slide across the cement. Not one of those people sitting in their cars waiting for the light stopped to see if I was even alive. No one bothered to call the police. Too busy, in too much of a hurry and hey, they didn't know me and so...I didn't matter. In a daze I got my now dented bike and walked it up the road to a restaurant. I went inside to have a look at myself in the bathroom and found I was a bloody mess, head, shoulder, arm, hip and down one leg I was road rashed and bloody. Here was yet more evidence of the distinct lack of care. None of the employees at the counter who saw me come in, nor the few customers standing in line, said anything, not even to ask if I was alright.

I am not one of you. I am incapable of seeing another hurt or in pain and looking the other way. I have stopped a mother from beating her child in a mall and been lectured by mall security about butting in where I don't belong. My inability to 'butt out' has caused more than one argument with my husband in the past. I was once riding the bus home from work. As usual at that hour it was packed. A woman and a man got on, smiling, and sat up front. A moment later he changed, standing above her yelling and pounding her in the face with his fists. Thirty people sat on that bus and as I looked around, every one of them was looking out the windows, pretending they couldn't hear his yelling or her screams. I stood, I screamed at him to stop and in surprise, he did. He stared at me for a moment before running off the bus and into the night.

I went to the woman who was reduced to sobbing and trying to staunch the blood and suddenly, as if they had decided it was now alright to care, the other passengers surrounded us. They offered napkins and tissues, asked her if she was alright and in all ways tried to pretend they had not been willing to watch her beaten to death just moments before. My husband was incensed. After much arguing, yelling and discussion I came to understand he was scared for me. Scared that the man I stopped might find some way to find me and exact revenge. I would do it again. In a heartbeat. Which spawned more arguments and eventually an uneasy truce where he accepts he can't change what I did nor that I will likely do it again in future.

Today I learned I am not alone in my need to care for the victims of the world. A retired Nepali soldier took on forty armed men with only a knife, all to save one girl from being raped. Of his actions he said "I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister...Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier; taking on the dacoits in the train was my duty as a human being."

My duty as a human being. This is how I feel and how I wish more people could feel. If more people understood this simple instinct, perhaps there would be fewer abused children in the world, their cries falling on the deaf ears of their neighbors, their bruises uncomfortably avoided by their teachers. Each time you turn a blind eye to the suffering of another when you have the chance to stop it, you cheapen the human spirit just a little more. It is our duty as human beings to help those who need us whether its standing between a woman and her attacker or a child and the parent who sees only a convenient, defenseless target. Don't think 'I don't know this person, it's not my place.' Rather remind yourself that it could be your son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father and wouldn't you hope that some kind soul would care enough to save them if you weren't there?

Bishnu Shrestha you are a hero sir and an inspiration. Thank you for knowing your duty as a human being.
Article: Lone Nepali soldier defends potential rape victim against 40 men.

Meet the Blue Box Angel.

Any fan of the long running, well loved British Sci-fi series Doctor Who will recognize my name. I grew up with Doctor Who, watching since I was five or six. Safe to say it helped to form the person I am today. It taught me to be open minded, to ask questions and seek knowledge; to look up at the stars and not see stars but potential. It taught me to dream and sparked my creativity and imagination. It taught me not to judge on appearances or religion, that no matter who we are or what we look like we all have the potential to be extraordinary.

If you're shaking your head and muttering to yourself right now that I am a geek, you're quite right. A cheerful, unrepentant geek at that. Yes, a science fiction show taught me how to look at the world and everything in it. Anything that can open a child's eyes to a wider universe should be lauded and respected. Yeah it's a television show and in some ways no different than any other. It's the philosophy behind it and present in every episode that I challenge others to watch and not respect.

I am a grown up who still remembers to jump in puddles and yes, hopes one day to hear that distinctive wheeze and find a blue police box inexplicably on a street corner with the door ajar.