Maybe we needed Trump for a while

With the election of Joe Biden as president, we are about to see an abrupt change in direction in the policies of the US leadership in Washington.  

It is one of the benefits of American democracy that the public has the power to pull the country back when they perceive it has gone too far in one direction or another.

I created this graphic at the beginning of Donald Trump's term to show that over multiple presidential administrations, our course first tacks one direction and then another, but generally speaking, the long-term course remains in the middle, toward the better.

History is likely to conclude that the last four years pulled us toward white supremacy, isolationism, limiting rights, and general divisiveness.  The next four years will likely lead us in different directions.  It may well be that historians 50-100 years from now will see the Trump Administration as revealing a deep darkness in American society that had mostly been hidden.  Maybe we needed Trump's authoritarian tendencies, chaos, and bluster in order to learn important lessons and "reimagine" who we are as a society, what kind of country we were meant to be.

For example, the Obama Administration was pretty dramatic in terms of the liberal/progressive agenda.  The electorate decided it was time to take a break (not counting questions of election meddling). 

Now that we have experienced the opposite direction for a while, the electorate has decided it's time to take the next steps in addressing importing things like climate change, health care, the tax code, and meaningful immigration reform.

American democracy often doesn't "get it right." Bad decisions get made and sometimes it takes a long time to correct them.  But elections allow the electorate to correct the heading and preserve the long-term course.

Four ways to tell: Is it news or advocacy?

I wrote this originally in 2016, but in the Trump era, it became even more important to know how to judge what is actually journalistic "news" and what is political advocacy.

When people, politicians, journalists, and others talk about "the media", everybody seems to mean something different.

For decades, "the media" referred to established mainstream news sources that pursued ethical and meticulous journalism. Today, social media has flattened the playing field and given everyone a voice, at little or no cost.  But this new "everyone" dynamic is largely made up of people who are not trained in journalism, not committed to telling all sides of a story, or are actively promoting a one-sided agenda.

How do you tell if what you come across is news or advocacy? Here are four ways:

1.  Value judgments are not attributed.

Real journalists do not tell you what they think as part of their stories.

Any time a headline or story body makes a statement about something being good or bad, admirable or not, or any other opinion, it needs to st somebody other than the journalist saying.  that means we have to attribute it as a quote or paraphrase.

If the story contains a value judgment without indicating the source, it is advocacy, not journalism.

2.  Loaded words have hidden meaning.

Journalists are trained to use descriptive language, but to avoid words that have social connotations, stereotypes, or other hidden meaning attached to them.

3. Doesn't really tell both sides of a controversy.

Advocacy thrives on giving you loaded information that is weighted to a particular agenda.  If a supposed news story brushes off an opposing point of view or only gives it lip service, it is likely not journalism.

4.   Contains ad hominem criticism, not attributed.

If the writer criticizes a person or group of people, as opposed to the person's/group's position on issues, it is a logical fallacy and it is advocacy, not journalism. Such "ad hominem" might appear in a quote and still be journalism, but when it is not attributed and this is a contention of the writer, it is not journalism.

Conclusion?

These four rules of thumb are just the beginning.  You have to scrutinize and evaluate the source of information.  Check Snopes or Politifact.  Ask yourself "is the writer promoting an agenda"?  The more you do this, the more it will become clear what is news and what is advocacy pretending to be news.

Star Trek Continuity in the 32nd Century

Before the premiere of Star Trek Discovery season 3, pretty much every article about the series was saying words to the effect of "the producers are no longer bound by Star Trek continuity."  The theory seemed to be that conforming to 50+ plus years of "facts" within the Star Trek universe is limiting. 

But the first two episodes of the season laid this claim to rest.  Previously-established continuity was all over the place in these episodes. 

Why I Voted Against Trump in 2020

Note: I wrote this in October 2020, well before the January 6, 2021 riot and so-called insurrection in the US Capitol building. Trump's role in that fiasco is not reflected in my analysis.
     -----
I have returned my completed absentee ballots for the 2020 elections and I did not vote to reelect the president.

Conservatives like to characterize opposition to the president as "they hate Trump."

The truth is that people who are committed to voting against reelection have generally made well-thought-through decisions based on solid moral and ethical frameworks.  In addition, they're tired of the chaos, bluster, and incompetence.

For the record, I am not a member of any political party and have not been for 40+ years. I, however, have a well-developed framework of what I expect from a politician in terms of critical thinking, ethics, and public policy. My years in journalism led me to decide what I think about politicians in complex terms, judging their ethics, their words, their actions, and their behavior holistically. 

So, according to my evaluation, here are the fundamental reasons I voted against Trump.

1. Policy - I disagree with virtually every major policy position of the Trump Administration.

• Rejection of evidence-based decisionmaking and well-established science in favor of wishful thinking or profit motive
• Woefully mismanaging the US coronavirus response 
• Out-of-control spending and skyrocketing deficit
• Diverting Congressionally-allocated money to unrelated pet projects
• Unprecedented interference with private businesses that goes way beyond OSHA, FTC and FDA norms
• Withdrawing from the world climate agreement and WHO for petty reasons
• Fostering fear and intimidation among legitimate refugees, a massive violation of Christian teaching
• Trying to scale back the social safety net, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving help
• Abandoning allies and tacitly supporting enemies of the US, in violation of all recommendations from the military and intelligence agencies
• Encroaching on national parks and other anti-environmental decisions, in most cases to boost profits of corporate campaign contributors
• Regressive attitudes about health care policy, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving health care
• Interfering with military justice processes 
• Pardoning friends who are convicted of serious crimes
• Politicization of federal agencies that are not supposed to be political, particularly the Justice Department
• The high-pressure rush to seat a new supreme court justice less than a month before the election, so that the justice can vote on cases he brings before the court
• Even going to the Moon and Mars, which I like, is being forced at such a break-neck pace that safety may be compromised 

2. Management practices - No management class teaches doing things anywhere near the way Trump does, much less the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he has a bachelor's degree (but no evidence of the MBA he claims)

• Continued bungling of COVID-19 crisis communication
• Appointing key people who have no relevant experience, or who were lobbyists for the industry they are now supposed to regulate 
• Reliance on unqualified ACTING leadership in important positions to avoid the Congressional confirmation process; never nominating permanent replacements
• Failure to give clear policy directives to subordinate agencies so that they misunderstand or are not properly prepared for implementation (this started almost from day one with his travel ban)
• Undercutting coordinated policy he previously approved
• Firing people by public tweet
• Non-disclosure agreements for public employees
• Failure to comply with legitimate subpoenas (which even Nixon did)

3. Morality and Ethics - We cannot tell what ethics are in the president's heart, but we can evaluate his morality (judgment of right and wrong) based on his public behavior.

• Suppressing vital information that has led to over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths
• Constant threats, bullying, intimidation, name-calling, insults, and general lack of civility
• Amplifying debunked conspiracy theories
• Constant false claims and superlatives that fail fact-checking
• Frequent appeals to racism; encouraging hate against minority groups
• General lack of respect toward anybody outside his inner circle
• Using HLS (or other unidentified federal personnel) as a secret police force
• Vindictive reprisals against political opponents
• Profiting from his government position 
• Intentional Hatch Act violations 
• Anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies (compromise is the moral foundation of democracy, not strong-man tactics)
• Ordering violent assaults on peaceful protestors
• Misunderstanding or deliberately disregarding the law and Constitution
• Consuming focus on self-aggrandizement
• Highest criminal indictment rate of political appointees in a century
• His personal tax returns show huge ethical problems and national security vulnerabilities

4. Aptitude - Certainly, Trump came into office with no experience, but he hasn't gotten any better while in office.  The "give him a chance" argument didn't result in improvement.

• Lack of insightful leadership on critical issues like pandemic relief and climate change
• Little evidence of critical thinking and an apparent lack of ability to comprehend complex issues
• Mercurial, unstable temperament 
• Inability to stay on topic
• Inability to articulate his ideas and policies clearly when "live" on camera
• Inability to admit error
• Inability to be "presidential" i.e. injecting inappropriate partisanism in situations that should be nonpartisan
• Reliance on right-wing pundits for policy guidance
• Wasting hours each day on "rage tweeting"
• Almost daily conduct unbecoming a president

To be honest, I saw these things coming and did not vote for Trump the first time.  He has given me no reason to change my mind, and in fact, revalidates my original 2016 decision almost daily.

Crisis Communication in the COVID Era

The president violated every lesson in crisis communication when he downplayed the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.

His claimed intent was to prevent panic, which is a worthy goal, but how he did it is NOT what ANYBODY with experience in crisis communication would do.  What should he have done?

Fake News and the "Marketplace of Ideas"

The term "fake news" has been thrown 

around constantly in recent years.

But legally and constitutionally, people have the right to publish what they want, and accuracy is not a legal requirement.

What does this mean to our present-day journalistic and political environment?

The 3Ws of Political Messaging

The lines are drawn for the November election propaganda blitz.  Both campaigns have their messaging in full swing. 

But much of the political communication we receive will not be directly from the campaigns or political action committees.  It will come from "friends" on social media. So how do we, as individual citizens, share our thoughts in a way that might actually persuade others?

Policies, not people

All over the place right now we hear name-calling and ad hominem attacks (attacks on who the people are, as opposed to the policies they support). 

But arguments like that are a great way to alienate voters "in the middle" who have not yet made up their minds, because you are not just insulting the top-of-the-ticket candidates.  You are insulting the undecided voters, themselves.

When you say things like:

You are un-American for supporting _______,

If you support that candidate, unfriend me.

You are gullible if you believe those lies. 

If you do/don't wear a mask, you are stupid and maybe evil. 

 

Who raised you? 

Do you think you will shame people into changing their minds?  It's not likely to happen.

If I tell you that you are stupid, does that open you up to new avenues of understanding?  No, it makes you stubborn and it makes you close down and avoid different ways of seeing things.

Name-calling is satisfying because it allows you to express anger or fear, but it is not good persuasion. Attacking the candidates for their personality or background does nothing more than add further polarization in the minds of the people you are trying to persuade.

If you want to get people to change their minds, you need to engage with them and use evidence.  People (such as voters) will use every tactic they can to AVOID admitting that they were wrong.  Good persuasion opens the door to greater understanding, and greater understanding opens the door to changing ideas.  Insults and attacks close down pathways that might change ideas.

If you want to change the ideas of people you know, don't insult them (or the candidates they may be considering). Engage with them and introduce them to persuasive evidence.  Ask questions so you know what their actual perceptions and concerns are and focus your evidence toward these things. 

Of course, phrase your questions so as to challenge their assumptions and point in the direction you want to go.  More about that in another upcoming blog post.  

 

Teachers Have More Impact than they Know

Since I announced my retirement, I have heard from people, particularly former students, who I haven't had contact with for years.  It has caused me to think more generally about the impact teachers have on their students' lives.

Some things I'm thinking about:

1. Years ago, when I was a development officer for the USD Foundation, we had a prominent alum retire.  I won't name him, but he was the chief financial officer for a major corporation that you would all realize. In reflecting on his retirement for the USD alumni newsletter, he named a business faculty member who he said had a profound impact on his career. When the teacher was asked, he didn't recall his former student at all, i.e. the guy hadn't been much of a standout in class, but he had been influenced anyway.

2. I am also reminded of a movie few people will remember from 1980 called The Competition.  In it,  a character played by Lee Remick lists her pedigree as a piano teacher:

"Ludwig Von Beethoven taught Carl Czerny, who taught Leschetizky, who taught Schnabel, who taught Renaldi, who taught me."

What I taught was the product of things that my previous teachers taught to me, as well as meaning I made on my own.  Some of what I learned on my own was after I started teaching, so I could better explain things to students. And there are things nobody could have taught me years ago, because they were brand new. Some of what my own teachers taught me was what their teachers had taught them, and their own teachers before them.  

In the last couple of weeks, since I announced my retirement, I have heard from hundreds of people, many of them former students, many of them saying remarkably nice things.  Some are crystal clear in my memory from their time as students and some are more of a "what class were they in?" kind of memory. I see some often on Facebook, and some I haven't hardly heard from since they graduated.  

It leaves me pondering what people really learned from me, what they have taken farther based on the foundation I helped them develop, and how they are using this ability and knowledge today.  How are they, formally or informally, teaching others? Do they even remember which ideas and skills they first came to understand in my courses, but that they are using today?

Teachers don't pour knowledge into people's heard.  They create environments in which students can connect the dots and create new knowledge for themselves.

Often teachers don't know the true impact we have had on our students.

Is the news media liberal? Yes, but not the way you think.

We've heard accusations for years about the alleged bias of the "liberal news media." Professional journalists are trained to keep their own opinions out of their work, but in the broader (non-political) context of "liberal," having a liberal news media is good for everybody. 

Read to find out why.

What do I want from Star Trek Lower Decks?

CBS has announced that Star Trek Lower Decks premiers August 6th.  The first animated Star Trek series since the 1970s is also the first Trek series to be produced as a comedy. It tells the story of a group of low-ranking crewmembers of the USS Cerritos, which has a mission of second contact with new "new life and new civilization" which had first contact with some other Starfleet ship.

The very first trailer that came out did not impress me, but I will give Lower Decks a chance because I have seen every Star Trek episode of every series and it's nice to keep the collection complete.  BUT here are some things that will determine whether I keep watching:

• Good continuity.  This animated series is clearly intended for young audiences, but I still want stories that are consistent with the rest of Star Trek continuity.  Don't break the rules that we know so well.
• Social messages. Star Trek is always (or at least usually) about social messages. I want to see thoughtful morals to the stories. Even South Park has worthwhile "messages" embedded in its juvenile humor.
• Interesting characters.  In animation, it is easy to have cardboard cutouts for characters.  I want to see some depth, backstories, and something other than slapstick.
• In-Jokes.  Yes, I do want to see some references to other incarnations of Star Trek, obvious or even better subtle.

This series is set after the final TNG movie, Star Trek Nemesis, a period of time not addressed in detail on-screen, except for the snippets of back history given in Star Trek Picard. That gives them a little elbow room. I HOPE that in catering to children, they don't forget that they are likely to have their grown-up Trek fans watching, as well.

The series was originally announced as being produced for Nickelodeon, but the latest word is that the ten episodes of the first season will be on CBS All Access now, and will appear on Nik sometime in 2021.  A second season of Lower Decks is already in the works.  Curiously enough, ten episodes, one a week, take us up right up the premier of the third season of Star Trek Discovery in October.

All Good Things 2: Accomplishments

On the occasion of my retirement, I have been thinking back over the past 16 years.

I have been the radio station advisor and Radio Workshop teacher for almost a third of the lifetime of KWSC-FM, which begins its 50th year this fall. When I inherited the station, it had a transmitter that was past its design lifetime, aging studio equipment, no AP service, bootlegged software on its production computers, and a programming automation system that somehow kept playing outdated things we tried time after time to remove. The station was also facing a $10,000 fine for FCC violations, committed before my time.  One of the main things I was charged with when hired was to "get things under control."

Today, the station has a new tower and transmitter site, audio consoles with years left in their lifetimes, a constantly updated production music library, a constantly updated on-air music service, and an automation system that works effectively (except for occasional glitch caused by human learning curves). We have recently-purchased BluTooth sports remote equipment, recently-purchased standardized studio microphones, and we are using a podcasting platform that I researched and brought to the table. My partner in all of these technology updates was our engineer, Tom Schmitz.

I have also been a leader for many curriculum updates.  What we now call "Electronic Media" was "Broadcasting' but the industry had moved beyond that "silo."  Collaborating with Maureen Carrigg and Max McElwain, we updated the name of the major and began the ongoing process of converging the student media to make them multi-platform, as the industry expects.  I also like to think that I helped find critical resources and the curriculum structure for the very popular digital film coursework of the "Hot Attic Film School", which is probably leading Mass Communication to a record enrollment, possibly as soon as this fall.

I have had multiple service roles at the school, including serving on the vital Academic Policies committee, the Institutional Review Board, chairing multiple hiring committees (they were all good hires), and some years ago chairing the Technology for Learning and Teaching (TLTC) committee as we revitalized it.  I also served on the WSC Centennial Committee.

There was a time recently, due to unexpected faculty changes, in which I was the ONLY full-time faculty member in mass communication. I do believe that I was an important part of holding things together during that challenging time.

For the record, there are things at WSC that only I know how to do, particularly involving the radio station, and I say that literally.  In anticipation of having Emeritus status, I am fully intending to assist and mentor whoever comes next teaching the classes that have been mine and in operating KWSC-FM.

All Good Things

I am today formally announcing that I am retiring and will not be teaching at Wayne State College this fall, at least not as a regular faculty member.

This has been a very difficult decision, but my wife and I are at elevated risk from the coronavirus. Even though WSC is taking admirable steps to attempt to control the virus, I would still be in a poorly-ventilated classroom that would be crowded at or beyond social distance capacity for a certain number of hours a week, not to mention other possible "walking about" exposures on campus.  We did a lot of soul-searching and decided that this is the best course for us.

Some people will probably be unhappy about this. I am sorry for students who may feel let down because they were expecting me to teach a class they will take this coming year. I am sorry for the short notice to whoever ends up teaching these courses. I will be available as a resource to the faculty (I will not tell them WHAT to do, but I will tell them how I taught the courses, how the systems work, etc.).

As for myself, I have always intended that when the time came for me to retire I would give plenty of official notice, to allow the college to either hire a replacement or at least find a fully-qualified interim. That plan, unfortunately, did not take into account the safety concerns from the current pandemic, which too many people around the country are politicizing and not taking seriously. I intend to seek emeritus professor rank, which could mean that I might possibly teach now and then in the future. 

It has been a good 16 years, but as they say, "all good things must come to an end." I have few regrets about my time at Wayne State College.

Pandemic Pursuits

I haven't blogged for a while, because a lot has been going on. My school suspended face-to-face classes in March and required all teachers to pivot to distance learning, with little more than a week's notice, which made for a busy time.  Now the school year is over and I am transitioning to summer mode, a time in which I mostly stay home anyway and work on academic writing and other home projects.

One of my fun activities has been home-mare sourdough bread.  I haven't baked much for some time (and really surprised my wife when I started).  And, of course, yeast is almost impossible to find in the stores, so like many people I have established my own sourdough started.  It turns out to not be hard at all, and the resulting bread tastes much better than commercial bread from the stores.

In scholarly writing, colleagues and I have a manuscript we are about to submit that has to do with the experiences of college teachers in the pandemic transition.

And I am constantly amazed by the politicization of the pandemic.  We truly do live in "the dumbest timeline."

Facebook and Twitter probably CAN legally censor your posts

A recent Supreme Court ruling may put the damper on efforts by the president and his defenders to stop social media giants from censoring and blocking accounts of people who make abusive, bullying, fascist, or other extreme posts, political and non-political. 

Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, was actually about cable TV public access channels, but the court's ruling sheds light on the right of media companies to censor user-generated content.

Remember that the First Amendment does NOT guarantee free speech in all situations.  What it does is prohibit the Government from taking actions that limit free speech (including all levels of government).

The cable company in this case censured and eventually banned the plaintiffs from providing content for the company's community access channel, as the result of a program they produced that was critical of the cable company itself. The plaintiffs claimed that because the community access channel was set up as a public forum, their rights were violated.

The Supreme Court majority noted that although the cable company had a contract with the city, it was essentially operating as a private company, and not as an agent of the city.  Therefore, the court ruled, the cable company is not bound by the First Amendment.  It returned the case to the federal district court for review, taking into account this guidance.

It seems to me that this is VERY relevant to the question of social media companies removing content or banning users.  Facebook and Twitter are not in any way agents of the government. They are clearly private companies.  Thus they have the right to set rules and boundaries about allowable content, known as the Terms of Service. 

Of course, there are complications, like the false positives resulting from the use of algorithms to try to identify violating content, which implies that the companies need functional appeal processes. 

But when people post in social media, they need to remember that they are still really playing in somebody else's sandbox, and nastiness CAN have consequences.

Spock's Character Arc

The Star Trek character Spock is one of the best-known and beloved characters in American television. He is a central character in season two of Star Trek Discovery, and he began the story arc more...emotional than we might have expected.

How has Spock's character evolved over the years, spanning multiple series?

We first see Spock as the son of a Vulcan man and a human woman.  In The Animated Series, a seven-year-old Spock is bullied by other Vulcan children for being part human. He struggles with his emotions, particularly when his (very large) pet shelat, I Chaya, is critically wounded in the wilderness.  Spock chooses to allow an animal healer to provide I Chaya a painless death, rather than living on in pain. In doing this, Spock chooses to live his life in the Vulcan way of logic.

But in Discovery, we learn that Spock at a similar age also had affection for his older, human foster sister, Michael Burnham.  Their father, Sarek, had hoped that Michael would help Spock learn to balance the two sides of his personality, the more logical Vulcan alongside the more emotional human side.

But Michael unwisely drove Spock away, out of fear that "logic extremists" who were vexed that mixed-bloods were among them on Vulcan, would target Spock rather than herself. This rift, according to Spock in Discovery, caused him to pursue logic more ardently, but immediately after his youthful confrontation with Michael, Spock experienced a vision from the "Red Angel" telling him how to find the endangered Michael.

Thus we have competing influences in the young Spock that affect his balance between logic and emotion.  Fans generally accept the animated episode as "canon" for how Spock came to embrace the logical side of his makeup.  But the version of Spock who comes from the Discovery writers gives us a Spock who continues to be unbalanced between logic and emotion (as well as possessing a never-before-mentioned learning disability, which must have complicated his young life).

Sarek eventually arranges for Spock to join something the Discovery writers called the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, but Spock joins Starfleet instead. It has long been part of Trek continuity that Sarek actually wanted Spock to join the Vulcan Science Academy, and refused to speak to Spock for 18 years when Spock choose Starfleet. Discovery implies that Spock did not actually attend Starfleet Academy, but joined in some other way.  This is supported by Spock's statement in The Wrath of Khan that he had never taken the Kobyashi Maru test. Michael also did not attend the academy and made her way to a Starfleet commission via an alternative route.

We next see Spock as a lieutenant on the Enterprise a dozen years before Kirk takes command and a couple of years before he appears in Star Trek Discovery, which is set a couple of years AFTER the original series pilot. That pilot episode, The Cage, was the first time Leonard Nimoy played Spock and the character was not yet fully formed, but this Spock grins, often raises his voice, and generally behaves more emotionally that we expect today from a Vulcan character.

In Star Trek Discovery, Spock also begins his the season in a more emotional frame of mind, expressing anger, which Captain Pike, who had known him for some time, finds to be uncharacteristic.  Specifically, something triggers nightmares about the red signals, and Spock goes so far as to check himself into a psychiatric facility at Starbase 5. The writers were never explicit about what triggered this, but the implication is that Michael's mother, using The Suit, somehow triggered it, because it was needed for the overall defeat of Control.

By the Original Series, Spock had become generally logical and unemotional, but with strong friendships aboard Enterprise, presumably prompted by Michael Burnham's farewell admonitions to find people who seem farthest from him and to let them guide him to balance.  This is generally considered to be a foreshadowing of Spock's relationship with Kirk, but it also heralds his sparring friendship with McCoy.

In TOS, however, viewers had repeated hints that, when Spock was under stress, drugged, etc., his emotions were just below the surface.  As we have seen, this is true of all Vulcans.  They are not automatically logical.  They learn to actively suppress emotions.

Indeed, in The Motion Picture, shortly after the end of the Enterprise five-year mission, Spock undergoes the Kohlinar ritual to purge the last vestiges of emotion, suggesting that he wanted to end his balancing act between logic and emotion.  This would have been almost exactly 15 years after the Discovery season finale.

Maybe no longer being shipmates with Kirk, McCoy et al. meant Spock lost the balance they provided, although one would have hoped that the 15-year older Spock would have learned more self-regulation in the intervening years.

Regardless, Spock does not complete the Kohlinar, because Vger mentally calls to him across space, and an emotion, curiosity, gets the better of him. I can imagine Spock thinking, "Again?"  Was he secretly saying "this could be Control, I've got to return to Enterprise to check it out."

In the Motion Picture, Spock mind melds with the pure logic of Vger and finds it to be lacking. He comes to the realization that both parts of his personality, logic and emotion, must synergize. Possibly for the first time, he becomes fully comfortable with who he is and his ability to balance logic and emotion.

Of course, a few years later, he dies, has his katra refused with his body, and has to go through the process of discovering balance all over again.

Later in life, Spock becomes an unofficial ambassador to the Romulans. Because the Romulans were so driven by emotion, reuniting them would have meant the same epiphany for the cultures as Spock earlier had for his own personality. So he becomes a teacher, living in hiding, until possibly after the events of Star Trek Nemesis.

In the Kelvan timeline, weird things happen. Spock goes back in time and eventually dies. In the main timeline, we do not (yet) know Spock's ultimate fate (the movie rights and the TV rights are held by different companies and they are not obligated to conform to each other, however TV executive producer Alex Kurtzman has been involved in both).

From a storytelling point of view, episode and movie writers have enjoyed placing the logical and unemotional Spock in circumstances that disconcerted him and allowed his emotions to bubble out. From an in-universe perspective, however, we can see that Spock has ebbed and flowed back and forth, between more and less emotional orientations, more and less balance.

Of course, the season finale of Discovery provides a rationale for why Spock has never mentioned Michael, even to his closest friends. Spock is good t keeping secrets - remember that he also had an older half-brother, Sybok, who he did not mention for decades.

At the conclusion id Discovery season 2, Spock's character is ready for the mindset we see in the Original Series and beyond. If by chance a Captain Pike series happens, I hope Spock is fully recognizable as his in-balance TOS self.

(Photos used under Fair Use provision of copyright law, for the purpose of comment and criticism.)

Star Trek Discovery: Saints of Imperfection

Here are observations about the fifth episode of Star Trek Discovery this season, Saints of Imperfection.  There ARE a few minor spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

1. May refers to transporting Tilly across the "dimensional plane."  So the thing Discovery is temporarily stuck in is basically an inter-dimensional portal.  Like a Stargate event horizon without the actual Stargate. Maybe THAT'S why the parts of the Discovery saucer need to rotate.  Because Stargates rotate in setting the destination address.  (In reality, CBS can't overtly use elements from MGM's Stargate, due to copyright, but the visual portrayals are reminiscent.)
2. Pike is seen entering the bridge from Lorca's Ready Room, even though Pike made a big thing a few episodes ago of not liking it and moving elsewhere. We can still see the stand-up desk through the doorway.
3. Pike and Georgiou were classmates at Starfleet Academy, although maybe not the same class year.
4. When Pike, Georgiou, and Burnham get into the turbolift, it starts going without anybody saying the destination.  In fact several times people get into the turbolift and don't say where they are going in this episode, but this is the only scene in which we see them continually after the doors shut.
5. A reference to "alligators" on Cestus III, was likely a reference to the Gorn, although supposedly Starfleet didn't know anything about the Gorn until the TOS episode Arena.  On the third hand, Lorca appeared to have a Gorn skeleton on display last season.
6. Also a reference to Deneva, one of the first Earth colonies, where Sam Kirk and family eventually live (and some of them die). 
7. Georgiou is eating an apple to show how cool she is, kind of like how the J.J. Abrams Kirk ate an apply in one of the movies.  She drops it when Burnham gets in her face.  She isn't as cocky as she pretends to be. Since they are getting ready to make a series about her, I HOPE that she is a nicer person than she lets on.  Here "oh look at the cute baby" moment last episode gives me some hope.
8. The new chief of security, Commander Nhan, is still wearing the skirt-and-tights version of the Starfleet uniform, except in Discovery blue.  Note that when Pike first came to Discovery, he identified her as an engineering staff member.  Now she's heading security.  Was she Security pretending to be Engineering, as a safety detail for Pike?
9. Once they find Tilly and...what else (spoiler) they find...they fritter away a LOT of time when they urgently need to be heading back.
10. Tyler has a radio integrated in his com badge, like TNG and later comm badges.  Nobody else has ever heard of that before, through the TOS movies.
11. The Section 31 ship does not have invisibility, but apparently is able to make its shields look like a big asteroid.
12. The tractor beams in this episode need a receptor or "tractor rig" to pull against.  The only time I remember the 1701 Prime using a tractor beam was in Space Seed, and they may well have placed a receptor on the Botany Bay, which we just didn't see.
13. Now we have two "we will meet again" foreshadows: Tilly and May, and Pike and Jacob (on New Eden). 
14. Leland is apparently in charge of Section 31, but he made a reference to "control" last week, and now we find out who "control" is.

Note: Photo is a "fair use" screen capture used for purposes of review or criticism, and thus complies with copyright law.

Star Trek Discovery: Points of Light & An Obol for Charon

Here are observations about the third and fourth episodes of Star Trek Discovery this season, Points of Light and An Obol for Charon.  There ARE a few spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

Points of Light

1. A lot of Points of Light has to do with establishing Section 31, Phillipa, and Ash as major players in the story.  Section 31 first appeared in DS9, but also appeared in Enterprise, so it has been around for a while.  But I could live without ever seeing Klingons again, if you must know.  So tired of them.
2. Tilly and May talked for a LONG time, but Tilly caught up with the other running cadets in short order.
3. When Sarek's ship approached Discovery, it was JUST like when Reliant approached Enterprise in TWOK.  Pike knew the rules about activating tactical systems when communication has not been established with an approaching vessel.  Kirk, true to form, ignored the rules. 
4. The transporter room (or at least the one in this episode) is on Deck 4.
5. The Klingon D7 starship, seen here in its design or early construction phase, has been seen throughout Trek. 
6. My wife and I both thought that L'Rell's residence looks a bit like Rivendell.
7. That data storage device looks a LOT like a 3.5 inch floppy disk, complete with write protection hole.  But is also looks a bit like the storage disks they used in TOS, which is presumably their intent.
8. "Post-war the Klingons are growing their hair again." Referencing the short hair on TOS Klingons, which was yet another time of war between the Klingons and the Federation?
9. In the jogging scene, there was Tilly, another woman, and two men.  In the bridge exercise later, there were two men, Tilly, and a couple of Mays.  Did the other woman wash out already? Or was she a training officer (she had a different colored shirt)?
10. May thinks Stamitz is the captain of the ship, and thinks he is terrifying.  But she needs to talk to him, or her plan will fall apart. Somehow Tilly is special to her, and her only chance...for something.
11. The "red angel" told Spock where Michael was when she ran away from home, years ago. Furthermore, Spock followed Michael around like a shadow, until she pushed him away and hurt him irreparably. She believed that the "logic extremists" would target him, if they could not target her.
12. May is some sort of apparition from the Mycellium, but so was Hugh appearing to Stamitz during the jumps, right?  Are they working together or at odds?  In both cases they have been helpful, but there is certainly an agenda at work.  Note that both Tilly and Stamitz have had spores get inside them.
13. House Kor is a reference to the Klingon character or, played by John Colicos in the TOS episode Errand of Mercy.
14. The Section 31 ship is reminiscent of Spock's warp shuttle in TMP, but presumably much bigger.
15. Didn't you love Phillip making googly eyes at eh baby, until ash looked at her?
16. The Klingon monastery at Boreth was mentioned in the TNG episode Rightful Heir, which featured Worf visiting it.
17. The look Phillipa gives the baby at the end the the episode is tender, but she hardens her face when she sees someone is looking at her.  To be the lead on her own spin-off series, she NEEDS some redeeming qualities.

An Obol for Charon

1. May gives us a moderately big reveal in this episode about why she is there, grooming Tilly for something.
2. This episode also makes a major character development for Saru.
3. Number One has been described in some non-canon sources as being a genetically perfect example of her species, making the name both a starship title, and possible a real name. But what's with her eating a cheeseburger and fries? I guess if she IS biologically perfect, she doesn't need to worry about healthy eating.
4. Note that she mentions Enterprise Chief Bouvier, presumably a reference to the chief engineer.  That suggests that Scotty is not yet in that job.  Also, they retconned NOT using the kinds of holographic displays on Enterprise in 10 years that Discovery has now.
5. Also note that her PADD is taller in the back than in the front, a bit like TOS PADDs (but not exactly). However later in the episode, the doctor's PADD and Michael's is just an ordinary flat screen.
6. Oh, great, there's some sort of conspiracy in Starfleet, causing Spock's case to be classified more highly than it should be. Conspiracies in Starfleet have been done to death.
7. Did Commander Nhan show up really abruptly in the briefing?  She she really her, or a mycelium entity, appearing to everybody, not just Tilly? 
8. There is a chief engineer on Discovery who we have not met.
9. There is more than one sickbay on Discovery. There was a reference to "take non-critical to sickbay 2."
10. Doctor Pollard's comm badge is NOT the overlapping circles for "sciences" like on the TOS Enterprise, but rather a little black version of the red cross denoting medical.
11. Saru and Michael seem very close in this episode, even though in last season he was telling her how dangerous she was and how he resented her for keeping him from being first officer.
12. Discovery has EPS systems, even though they were never mentioned in TOS and were allegedly new in TNG. They used antibodies to slow the virus progress, but it wasn't until Voyager that ships had bio-neural gel packs that contain synthetic neural cells for circuitry.
13. So the sphere is 100,000 years old and now we have everything it has seen and experienced.  Kind of like Vyger, huh? And there was a reference to "all library computers" implying more than one.
14. Discovery's jumps harm the residents of the Mycelium network, which is maybe why TOS, TNG, etc, never heard of it. One is reminded of the Voyager episodes Equinox, in which the smaller ship was killing alien lifeforms to get a boost toward home.

27 Things you may have missed in Star Trek Discovery

Screen capture under copyright fair use

I believe that I have seen every Star Trek episode and movie so far, so of course I am interested in Star Trek Discovery.  I enjoy looking at story lines and visual elements, but I also enjoy watching for the little details that other reviewers often don't mention.

There are no significant spoilers about the story line, but here are some details I notice in the first two Discovery episodes of season two, Brother and New Eden.

1.  Spock told Pike about Michael ("He said you were smart") but not Kirk about Sybok.  Is there a chance that Kirk DID know about Michael, but it never come up on screen? 

2.  Change of command cannot be transferred without DNA authentication witnessed by the entire bridge crew since the war.  Tell that to Matt Decker and that other guy who appropriated Enterprise ten years later.  

3.  Pike served on the USS Antares, poor ship (it's the one that Charlie X blew up). 

4.  The Enterprise "new uniforms" are exactly the same design and cut, except with different colored fabric.  The design makes the Discovery uniforms look like jumpsuits, but the same design makes the Enterprise new uniforms look a separate top and trousers.  The trousers that go with Pike's gold shirt uniform have zippered pockets, by the way, and I believe that e have never seen pockets in a Starfleet uniform before. 

5.  In episode one, Tilly talks about living with ghosts, which actually happens to her in later episodes. Foreshadowing.  

6.  Michael's pillow is on her bed vertically, now horizontally, like most people have their pillows. Maybe it's pre-positioned for sitting up in bed.

7. Their phaser pistols DO have the little phaser 1 on top. They look a lot more like TOS phasers than the ones Pike had on Talos IV.  Plus, why did they take the bigger pistols to New Eden when they wanted masquerade as locals? With no threat obvious, the littler ones would be more inconspicuous. 

8. During the Klingon war, which the Federation almost lost, Enterprise was too far away to come back?  That means months at high warp (or what was high warp back then) because the war lasted at least ten months.  Were all of the Constitution Class ships that far out? 

11. The ships we see outside the window in Brother tractoring Enterprise look a lot like Miranda Class, with old-style nacelles. 

12. When Spock gave up the Kolinahr because he sensed Vyger from a distance, maybe his consuming curiosity came from the fact that he'd been through it all before with the still-mysterious Red Angel. "Wait - another one?"

13. In episode 1, Pike says he needs a new Ready Room.  By episode 2 he has one, and it is apparently NOT right off the bridge, as the old one was.  The new one has a surprising number of decorative items for a temporary captain. 

14 In New Eden, when Michael arrives on the bridge, Tilly says she has been using Michael's station to run calibration modeling programs, but the things she has open on the desktop are Command Training Program manuals, checklists, a "to do" list, and private messages. 

15. Identifying the location of the New Eden red signal needed better technobabble. Discovery uses a momentary warp jump to get closer to a signal in order to pinpoint its location, but being in maximum warp for five seconds is inconsequential compared to the 51,450 light years away the signal actually was. This compares to the roughly 70,000 light years Voyager was swept by the Caretaker, past the Beta Quadrant into the Delta Quadrant. Did Captain Janeway ever consider going to the known human colony on New Eden?   

16. Nice that Discovery mentions the ban on human genetic engineering that was featured in Star Trek Enterprise episodes and that resulted from the Eugenics Wars. 

17. "Be bold, be brave, be courageous" sounds like an embryonic catchphrase. 

18. The Discovery is under red or yellow alert, little motion graphics appear at the upper left and right of the bridge view screen to remind everybody. Presumably Black and Blue alerts, also.

19. Saru can determine how long the radio message has been transmitted based on "audiophonic degradation"?  Technobabble failure. 

20. Lots of people have comments on the reference to reframing Arthur C. Clark's third law. Suggesting that "any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God" pretty well lays out that this a YAGLA story arc (the term used by fans for "Yet Another God-like Alien"). 

21. Tilly referred to her metreon-charged asteroid and metreon-charged dark matter.  Metreons have mentioned several time in Star Trek's past, including as particles that interact with dark matter.  Nice technobabble continuity. 

22. In Brother, Michael has several holographic candles burning in her room, whereas in the New Eden church, real candles are burning during the day, plus flaming torches outside at night, with none of the locals around. Apparently the locals have plenty of candle-making and oil refining capability.  In addition, the basement lights are bright and have wires running to them.  They can keep them lit, but not the lights upstairs? Plus the power to run the transmitter for years and years?  Inconsistent portrayal. 

23. It looks like each of the seven red signals is leading Discovery to a rescue mission, but each of them seems to be a manipulated event - by May or somebody else?  Seven signals equals half of the season.  Will the second half of the season be a different story arc, like last season? 

24. I don't get how the entire 365 degree ring is heading toward the planet, but pulling away just some of the debris in one place pulls all the debris everywhere away.  By the way, the "donut in a starship" wasn't all that great a special effect.  A donut is a 360 degree skid.  Sorry, producers - the visual effect didn't pay off. 

25. Transporters can't lock on to the Metreon asteroid rock (Brother) but tractor beams can (New Eden)? Plot device. 

26. There did not appear to be a bell in the church belfry.  They should have one, plus lights there.

27.  The episode preview at the end of New Eden shows the Discovery commissioning plaque.  She is Crossfield Class, presumably a reference to famous pilot Scott Crossfield, the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound.

So, yes, these are the kinds of things I look at when each new Star Trek episode, along with the more obvious things like story line, script, visual presentation, and acting.

Does The Wall really make sense?

As a college teacher, I avoid expressing political opinions in class.....but the new semester has not yet started yet, so, here are my comments on the proposed border wall, which is the consuming sticking point on the federal government shutdown.

1.  Big/long walls are not effective.  The full extent of the Berlin Wall required watch towers and guards, and people still got across.  The Great Wall of China (I've been there) is really a series of watch towers and an elevated road connecting them, not a barrier.  A good extension ladder would get people over The Great Wall pretty easily. 

2.  A border wall would require intensive guarding.  It would cost billions annually  for cameras, drones, aircraft, and ground patrols along nearly 2,000 miles of fence.  It would require hundreds of not thousands of guards.

3.  In spite of that, people WILL find a way over, under, around, or through the wall, when guards happen to NOT be looking. Humans are ingenious, particularly when their lives are in danger.  

4. The real cost of The Wall would be $30+ Billion, which that does not include the huge ongoing personal and programmatic costs mentioned in #2 above.  

5.  The wall would require condemnation of private property and destruction of wildlife sanctuaries.  In Texas, at least, one-third of the land needed for the border wall is owned by the federal government or Native American tribes. The rest is owned by states and private property owners, some of it owned before statehood. 

6.  The proposed wall would violate Christian teaching and whether or not you are Christian, it is hard to defend in terms of ethics and morality, particularly since the focus of stopping people is refugees seeking asylum because their lives are threatened back home.  

7. Drugs do not come in via refugees seeking asylum, but rather come hidden in luggage through legal checkpoints, or tunnels, drone flights, etc.  Any drug argument related to advocating for the wall is specious. 

8.  Illegal immigration has been down every year since 2007. I don't like the family separations and internment camps of the Trump administration, but what we have been doing for the last decade is working. 

9.  Most "illegal immigrants" have been in this country for more than a decade, such as overstaying their visas. A high percentage of them have children who are citizens by birthright.

10.  I am sorry, buy I do not trust the president to make wise decisions.  His constant logical fallacies, outright lies, and the way his actions reveal his morality have left me feeling that virtually everything he does lacks any semblance of critical thinking. So I am suspicious of his rationale. 

The conservative Cato Institute says, “President Trump’s wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration.”

For the president and the current GOP, the Wall is a symbol of fear that would cost a huge amount of money and would not be effective, because it is not based on evidence or a solid plan.

The better solution is comprehensive and realistic immigration reform, period.