My knee's not much improved, but I'm going in to work--and will leave early if my knee hurts too much.
Four weeks in with this injury and after another sleepless night, I finally made a doctor's appointment this morning.
I go in tomorrow.
I'm still waiting on State health insurance, but decided to go anyway (and pay for it out of pocket, for the time being)
because I obviously need some help!
Every so often I look back at previous years' posts from the month I'm in.
I almost never re-post, but this one from seventeen Februaries ago made me laugh out loud-0--and while a lot of things in my life have changed since 2008, some of my thoughts on The American Empire are just the same.
"I bet the Romans were just as surprised as Americans seem to be when the edges began to crumble and bridges to fall."
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
No Seat Belts Please, We're Imperialists
I've taken the opportunity--while being responsible over the past 10 days for the lives of the various dogs...
...and cats...
in
two homes with big TVs (while their owners fled to warm climates and
broke out in rashes, some of them, no lie, from sudden exposure to the
Sun)--to watch massive amounts of the follow-up Star Trek series (TNG,
DS9, VOY, and ENT).
I tried; but it turns out, for me, there can be only one. And that one,
of course, is the original Star Trek with that ham-and-cheese delight, Captain Kirk.
The later Star Treks are just TV shows, while the original Star Trek, with all its flaws, is right up there with the Aeneid, the tale Virgil made up about the founding of Rome. It catches who we Americans are, for better or worse, on a mythic level.
We are a lot like the ancient Romans--big bullies who built top-notch roads and stuff and held together an empire by marching heavily armed soldiers into town and saying,
We come in peace, would you like to buy a Coke?
I bet the Romans were just as surprised as Americans seem to be when the edges began to crumble and bridges to fall.
And basically Kirk is an imperialist like Aeneas, all talk about the Prime Directive respecting native cultures be damned. A hugely likable imperialist!
Sort of like Pope John Paul II. That guy was a fascist, but I couldn't help liking his media image. You felt he would truly be sorry as he held your hand and explained you couldn't be a priest because [_______fill in the blank].
Kirk would be the same: Sorry, you just didn't have the right stuff for Starfleet. Had you thought about the Merchant Marine?
There's a lot of complexity to Star Trek's weird appeal, but the thing I actually set out to write about here was the connection (slim) to Ralph Nader. He was one of the heroes on my childhood radar for making the Klingons put seat belts in cars. OK, not Klingons, but close enough.
The later Star Treks are just TV shows, while the original Star Trek, with all its flaws, is right up there with the Aeneid, the tale Virgil made up about the founding of Rome. It catches who we Americans are, for better or worse, on a mythic level.
We are a lot like the ancient Romans--big bullies who built top-notch roads and stuff and held together an empire by marching heavily armed soldiers into town and saying,
We come in peace, would you like to buy a Coke?
I bet the Romans were just as surprised as Americans seem to be when the edges began to crumble and bridges to fall.
And basically Kirk is an imperialist like Aeneas, all talk about the Prime Directive respecting native cultures be damned. A hugely likable imperialist!
Sort of like Pope John Paul II. That guy was a fascist, but I couldn't help liking his media image. You felt he would truly be sorry as he held your hand and explained you couldn't be a priest because [_______fill in the blank].
Kirk would be the same: Sorry, you just didn't have the right stuff for Starfleet. Had you thought about the Merchant Marine?
There's a lot of complexity to Star Trek's weird appeal, but the thing I actually set out to write about here was the connection (slim) to Ralph Nader. He was one of the heroes on my childhood radar for making the Klingons put seat belts in cars. OK, not Klingons, but close enough.
Which got me thinking that one of the things uniting all 5 of the Star
Trek series is none of the star ships ever employ seat belts.
All these
years, every time a ship runs into an asteroid or whatever, everybody
goes flying out of their chairs.
In an early episode of Enterprise, the last of the series made, when the ship is about to get blasted, the captain calls out to his crew, "Hold on to something!"
Hold on to something??
That's the extent of passenger safety on starships?
Sure, why not? We don't need seat belts!
We're the Roman Empire.
In an early episode of Enterprise, the last of the series made, when the ship is about to get blasted, the captain calls out to his crew, "Hold on to something!"
Hold on to something??
That's the extent of passenger safety on starships?
Sure, why not? We don't need seat belts!
We're the Roman Empire.
i'm in the original star trek boat also. sometimes they were so campy but still fun. when i was in college we had an area with a tv on the wall. at 4 pm every week day a crowd would gather and try to guess the episode showing that day within the early seconds of the show. a former co-worker and i set down one day to name all of the episodes which we did. he had forgotten the one about the tribbles. such great memories. i think i need to re-watch the whole series.
ReplyDeletebravo on the doctor appointment!
k
“The Trouble with Tribbles”—how could he forget?! 😄
DeleteI blogged a lot about rewatching Star Trek in 2008-09
Many years ago my brother and I would watch Star Trek re-runs every afternoon before dinner (where was my sister I wonder?). We could tell what the episode was wishing the first few minutes, if not seconds. It's still associated in my mind with being hungry.
ReplyDeleteAnd I remember talking about the seat belt thing (seat belts were controversial and not yet required at that point, as I recall(.
Ceci
speaking of seat belts, my family drove from Chicago to KS in a corvair that Nader didn't like. I remember there being no seat belts in that car or if there were we really didn't wear them much sitting in the back seat (if one could call it a seat).
Deletekirsten
CECI: That’s exactly what I’d do—come home from high school and watch reruns in syndication on the family’s little B&W television—often w my little brother. I think it started at 3:30…
DeleteFor sure I could name the episodes within moments
Hanging on while the Star Ship was blasted about was all part of the fun. Did the stage actually tilt or did the actors just throw themselves about about without any help? I'm sure we never had a car with seat belts until sometime in the 70s...
ReplyDeleteI could never understand JPII's media allure. His expression was always so smug and self-righteous. Never would I believe he was sad/sorry about any rules he imparted/believed in, and I certainly wouldn't want him to hold my hand. Yuk! Swarmy!
Definitely part of the fun! – – I believe they just threw themselves around, not to the stage moved.
DeleteYou are quite right about JP 2 – – though I did see his appeal, just like I saw Ronald Reagan’s appeal without actually liking him – –
but our current president? I can’t even see an appeal there!
Can't bend the knee and won't bend the knee, either way I see it as a great character asset...If you have arthritis I have just the medicine for it- let me know!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post and I did laugh, thank you.
I know I do have some arthritis in my knee, Linda Sue – – what is your medicine? Glad you enjoyed the post
DeleteStar Trek was wonderful. I never could get into anything after. The opening doors fascinated me. Years later I learned some one on the other side had to open that door just in time and occasionally the scene had to be reshot because it didn't happen that way.
ReplyDelete😄 Funny that many of the things they foresaw did come into being—though we’re still waiting on world peace…
Delete