I spend my days with my youngest child, pretty much all day everyday. This afternoon when in the bathroom he scribbled a drawing than announced ‘It’s a cat’, in toddler’s talk and repeated it a couple of times. I missed his first drawing! I wonder if I should be gutted or it may be shouldn’t bother and it’s just one of those stereotypical stay at home parenting things. Don’t know, don’t really know what a stereotypical stay at home parent would look like actually.
Irony is that when I arrived to wonder in amusement of his drawing, some 31 seconds later, pointing at it and asking ‘is this a cat?’ in excitement he just looked at me as if i lost it. ‘what cat? It’s just scribble.’ although he appreciated my excitement.
We had to have a talk with Liliom this afternoon: In school they were experimenting with the primary colours mixing them a bit. As everything in her school it came with a nice story that was pleasant to listen to when she retold it. However it was once again painful to realise that she thinks this school of hers has no connection to her other life, that the attempt to build a well functioning community of learners with her was so successful that she forgets to check it against other aspects of her life. She told me ‘she never mixed these colours before’ and I actually answered ‘bullshit!’
When it comes to painting session Jen and I are at times painstakingly fixated on these three most basic of colours as a starting point. And we eagerly share our views with Lili, needless to say.
But she received some payback later in the afternoon. At ballet they are learning some dance for the big end of term show ad her regular partner was off today. This wasn’t the pay back but as I found out at home, her partner for the session. Apparently they couldn’t work together and Lili spent the way home complaining and ranting about her. In some twisted sense it was entertaining, and cute. Of course at some pint I had to start being the good and sensible parent and try to help her resolve her inner rage in a constructive and creative manner.
The last ever episode of SGU has aired last night. After we’ve seen it Jen couldn’t stop swearing it was so rubbish. I was gonna say I bet she still going on about that in her had but she just told me ‘sizzle frazzle frizzle’. Late night studies do things to you
Showing posts with label Stargate Universe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stargate Universe. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Stargate Universe
Staying at my mother’s place outside Fot near to Budapest we have been contemplating the issue of Americannes of contemporary Hungarian society. There is probably a lot more to it than our surface examinations make us realise this but there are some aspects that probably resemble a hint of reality.
Such would be the desperation of central European societies to truly belong to so called Western Europe, culturally, politically and economically while there is also a desperation to retain a distinctive character that is – here for instance – Hungarian. All this manifest in what we may call the European integration, the great project of pan-europeannes spearheaded by the very entity of the European Union. An entity that is inherently corporatist (as there is no public space within the EU for pubic politics, the people per se).
We were driving everywhere from my mother’s big house and big garden, a relatively isolated rural suburb because the nearest bus stop one would have found 2kms away walking on a dirt road under the beating sun pushing the buggy in fine sand. Once we got to the road we soon could reach the ring road and a fine numbers of malls and mega markets. Once we have drown on the highway to get an ice-cream. It felt what I would have imagined feels like living in a North American suburb.
How Stargate Universe does come into this? No, we didn’t find a stargate in the sand between the highway and the house. The issue is more subtle about societies’ desperate attempts to retain cohesion of some sort through nationalism whatever the price may be and propaganda enhancing such projects.
The bunch of SG personnel, civilian and military for months has been desperately trying to survive as castaways on the ancient starship Destiny millions of light-years from Earth, no hope of ever returning home. An interesting scenario of a small community, yet an entire society being born, an excellent set up to deliver what good sci-fi produces; a critical view of today’s society.
The intriguing enterprise took on somewhat of an action genre when the Lucian Alliance sent a team of warriors to take control of the ship. They are humans too but a ruthless syndicate concerned with power and profits nothing else, not allied with earth. They took over the ship and dropped of most of the SG crew on a planet where they would not have survived long but with some cunning plan the ones remaining on Destiny got them back and the ‘good guys’ won of course. Now they were left with the trouble of what to do with the band of warriors unworthy of their trust. They selected a handful handsome and clever ones to take on while dropped of the rest on another uninhabited planet capable to support human life (somewhat). However Destiny’s crew could not share any equipment with them so they were left with nothing but the clothes they were.
All this is well somehow; one could under certain circumstances justify acts incomprehensible otherwise. The starship travels on and episodes pass. Most undisturbing though is the lack of follow up. Nobody spares another word for those most probably left to die. As if they weren’t human beings or never existed. As if they deserved a treatment was unfair on them. As if the SG crew is morally right to call such judgments just because they had a the moral high ground (originally) as somewhat peaceful explorers and scientists. Thus the how presents us with propaganda: if against ‘us’ you are not one of us, we are people so you aren’t.
A similar story is the over hyped issue of building a Islam cultural centre in downtown New-York. Some argues it shouldn’t be allowed because it isn’t like a Christian centre would be allowed to be built downtown Riyadh. Which argument may be misinformed anyway but that is beside the point. Taking the moral high ground than arguing that our morally inferior opponents deserve the same treatment as they morally inferiorly would subject ‘us’ to really does destroy that moral high in fact it exposes that it never really existed. Best example of such propaganda is ‘24’ where the main character has to torture people in order to be able to save the day. He laments about it for a couple of minutes that has a good torture. Putting the same morality on screen doesn’t make SGU propaganda but what does is the lack of dialogue and debate. There appears to be consensus and the issue is of the topic thus propaganda is born. Probably completely unwillingly and unknowingly but nevertheless.
And how shall I turn this toward Szeged? The recent Local Council elections.
The governing party in the country is called ‘Fidesz MPP and KDNP’ or something like that, and this is just the shorthand! Now Fid rules the parliament with a vengeance and the democratic process has become almost less a façade than it used to (in post democratic states). After the local elections they are happy holders of majority of council seats in most local councils especially so in bigger towns and there may only be 2 bigger settlements where the major is in opposition to the central gov. Szeged is one of this place. The people have voted wrong. In another town, Esztergom the council is contemplating on stripping the new major of pretty much all her rights as a major because she is also in opposition to Fidesz, the people voted wring there too. Ruthless logic of exclusion, supporting propaganda provided above.
I wonder sometimes, if I watch TV I should not bother think about what I see… anyone else?
Such would be the desperation of central European societies to truly belong to so called Western Europe, culturally, politically and economically while there is also a desperation to retain a distinctive character that is – here for instance – Hungarian. All this manifest in what we may call the European integration, the great project of pan-europeannes spearheaded by the very entity of the European Union. An entity that is inherently corporatist (as there is no public space within the EU for pubic politics, the people per se).
We were driving everywhere from my mother’s big house and big garden, a relatively isolated rural suburb because the nearest bus stop one would have found 2kms away walking on a dirt road under the beating sun pushing the buggy in fine sand. Once we got to the road we soon could reach the ring road and a fine numbers of malls and mega markets. Once we have drown on the highway to get an ice-cream. It felt what I would have imagined feels like living in a North American suburb.
How Stargate Universe does come into this? No, we didn’t find a stargate in the sand between the highway and the house. The issue is more subtle about societies’ desperate attempts to retain cohesion of some sort through nationalism whatever the price may be and propaganda enhancing such projects.
The bunch of SG personnel, civilian and military for months has been desperately trying to survive as castaways on the ancient starship Destiny millions of light-years from Earth, no hope of ever returning home. An interesting scenario of a small community, yet an entire society being born, an excellent set up to deliver what good sci-fi produces; a critical view of today’s society.
The intriguing enterprise took on somewhat of an action genre when the Lucian Alliance sent a team of warriors to take control of the ship. They are humans too but a ruthless syndicate concerned with power and profits nothing else, not allied with earth. They took over the ship and dropped of most of the SG crew on a planet where they would not have survived long but with some cunning plan the ones remaining on Destiny got them back and the ‘good guys’ won of course. Now they were left with the trouble of what to do with the band of warriors unworthy of their trust. They selected a handful handsome and clever ones to take on while dropped of the rest on another uninhabited planet capable to support human life (somewhat). However Destiny’s crew could not share any equipment with them so they were left with nothing but the clothes they were.
All this is well somehow; one could under certain circumstances justify acts incomprehensible otherwise. The starship travels on and episodes pass. Most undisturbing though is the lack of follow up. Nobody spares another word for those most probably left to die. As if they weren’t human beings or never existed. As if they deserved a treatment was unfair on them. As if the SG crew is morally right to call such judgments just because they had a the moral high ground (originally) as somewhat peaceful explorers and scientists. Thus the how presents us with propaganda: if against ‘us’ you are not one of us, we are people so you aren’t.
A similar story is the over hyped issue of building a Islam cultural centre in downtown New-York. Some argues it shouldn’t be allowed because it isn’t like a Christian centre would be allowed to be built downtown Riyadh. Which argument may be misinformed anyway but that is beside the point. Taking the moral high ground than arguing that our morally inferior opponents deserve the same treatment as they morally inferiorly would subject ‘us’ to really does destroy that moral high in fact it exposes that it never really existed. Best example of such propaganda is ‘24’ where the main character has to torture people in order to be able to save the day. He laments about it for a couple of minutes that has a good torture. Putting the same morality on screen doesn’t make SGU propaganda but what does is the lack of dialogue and debate. There appears to be consensus and the issue is of the topic thus propaganda is born. Probably completely unwillingly and unknowingly but nevertheless.
And how shall I turn this toward Szeged? The recent Local Council elections.
The governing party in the country is called ‘Fidesz MPP and KDNP’ or something like that, and this is just the shorthand! Now Fid rules the parliament with a vengeance and the democratic process has become almost less a façade than it used to (in post democratic states). After the local elections they are happy holders of majority of council seats in most local councils especially so in bigger towns and there may only be 2 bigger settlements where the major is in opposition to the central gov. Szeged is one of this place. The people have voted wrong. In another town, Esztergom the council is contemplating on stripping the new major of pretty much all her rights as a major because she is also in opposition to Fidesz, the people voted wring there too. Ruthless logic of exclusion, supporting propaganda provided above.
I wonder sometimes, if I watch TV I should not bother think about what I see… anyone else?
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