this ain't livin'

Note: This post includes spoilers for all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica! If you have not seen the show in its entirety yet, you really do not want to read this.

Battlestar Galactica is often described as a sweeping show with a whole lot to cover. Thus, it’s not a big surprise that some things fell through the cracks. It’s inevitable when you’re dealing with a narrative that is this epic in scope. And, by and large, I am really pleased with the things that the show handled, and with how in-depth it managed to get with a lot of issues.

But I was a bit disappointed that one of the things the show didn’t explore more fully was the issue of reproductive autonomy, both because there was a lot of explore, and because it’s such a hot issue in society right now that I was kind of looking forward to seeing what they did with it. The show certainly didn’t shy away from including not so subtle commentary on other issues, like, say, torture, and the occupation of countries to “liberate” them.

The show sets us up with an uncomfortable dilemma: Humanity has been reduced to less than 50,000 people, and they need to reproduce if the species is going to survive. Indeed, as Gaius Baltar points out, they need to be reproducing at a rate faster than the one they sustain to keep the species alive. Thus, it stands to reason that every child is a wanted child, for the species, even if not in an individual case.

Now, I want to say right here and now that I am not a forced birther and hopefully never will be. But Battlestar Galactica presents a challenging issue. Assuming that you think that the human race needs to and should survive, can you really in good conscience abort a fetus? A potential human being who would add to the genetic diversity of the species?

This is a case in which exercising individual reproductive autonomy, a right which I strongly believe needs to be protected, would have a profound impact on society. Not in the abstract sense that anti-abortion folks want to bring up, but in a very real sense; every fetus which is aborted, every child which does not survive to adulthood, every adult who does not have children, is contributing to a limitation of the population, which is bad for the species. Women in the world of Battlestar Galactica aren’t just making a choice for themselves, they are also choosing for their species, and the species doesn’t get a say in the matter.

This is really brought home in the second season, with three parallel plots both addressing the issue, from very different perspectives.

In the fleet, a young woman wants to pursue an abortion, and an argument is made for banning abortion. President Roslin, who has been fiercely pro-choice her whole life, is faced with a classic election problem: Stick with her beliefs, or win votes? In the end, she tries to have her cake and eat it too; she bans abortion, but still allows the young woman to have one, arguing that the procedure took place before the ban and therefore doesn’t count. We see politicians compromising themselves for votes all the time, but it seems especially stark here because being pro-choice seems so personal and vital that it’s frightening to see Roslin depriving women in the fleet of their reproductive freedoms for a handful of votes.

Later, we see Roslin ordering the abortion of Sharon’s fetus from her deathbed because she thinks the child going to be a monster, and only reversing her decision when it’s revealed that the blood of the fetus can save her from her cancer. I think there are some potentially interesting parallels to be explored here with abortion and disability, in which women are often encouraged and sometimes forced to abort after a fetal diagnosis by people who think that the child will be a “monster,” even if those women want their children.

On Caprica, Starbuck is kidnapped and she wakes up in a Cylon research facility; it’s implied that her ovaries are taken for their eggs, and she stumbles into a room filled with human women who are, literally, serving as incubators for Cylon-human babies. I have to admit, this scene made me almost viscerally ill. It was like a realization of the worst dreams of some of the forced-birther types, in which women are reduced to their uteruses and have no value beyond being used to develop a fetus.

In an act of mercy, Starbuck disconnects the women from the machines after being begged to do so, even though the women know that it will kill them. Later, this experience comes back to haunt her in the third season when she is confronted with a child which a Cylon claims is hers, which is something I would actually like to get into in another post in the future.

All of these plots highlight the intensely personal nature of abortion and reproductive freedoms, and how politicized it can become. We see women who very much do not want to be pregnant, and we see women who very much want to be pregnant, and we see the choices of others imposed on them “for the common good,” and it brought up a lot of really interesting issues. My thoughtbox was going a mile a minute thinking about all of these stories.

After this handling in the second season, I thought for sure that we would be touching upon this again in later seasons. Yet, it’s something which was pretty much placed on the back burner from there on out, and I’m not quite sure why. It certainly continued to be relevant, especially after the Cylons became mortal and there were very real risks of losing both Cylons and humans. And as the numbers of humans in the fleet shrank, it seemed even more pressing to discuss the fact that without more babies, civilization could die.

Did they feel that they just didn’t have time? Was there pressure from the network to drop it?

Shapely Prose: With advocates like this, who needs hate radio?

Sarah Palin, who claims to want her son Trig to grow up free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better, thinks it’s somehow not unacceptable or heartbreaking to call someone a “retard” if you don’t actually do it to their face.

New York Times: Toyota Has Pattern of Slow Response on Safety Issues

…the automaker has often reacted slowly to safety concerns, in some instances making design changes without telling customers about problems with vehicles already on the road, an examination of its record shows.

The Age: Indians slam Overland’s advice to ‘look poor’ to avoid being bashed

“…Every workplace should be safe. I think it’s a ridiculous idea. It is blaming the worker. It is blaming the victim.”

Seven Days: Vermont Legislators Admit to Cheating the System. Are They Justified?

The 38-year-old farmer justifies collecting more for mileage and food than he actually spends by considering it as part of his overall compensation.

New York Times: Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord

But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

NOW Magazine: Yes Man, no guff

He makes culture jamming seem effortless, and obviously downplays the nerves of steel required to deceive on a mass scale.

The Onion: Bald Eagle Tired Of Everyone Just Assuming It Supports War

“You step out of the nest to clear your head with a few minutes of soaring, and people automatically peg you as some kind of embodiment of American freedom worth killing and dying for.”

I have been lagging behind on my Hulu queue and I actually watched this episode last night, but I didn’t feel up to writing about it until, well, know. Anyway, please assume spoilers are in force.

This week’s Bones revolved around a man with schizophrenia who was murdered and then burned on the altar of a church. It should come as no surprise to learn that as soon as the word “schizophrenia” was said on screen, I said “ooooooh nooooo” and my fears turned out to be well grounded.

It turns out that mental illness is “living in hell,” according to the Bones creators, and all that crazy people do is wander around institutions being crazy. Either they have blank stares on their faces or they are fighting nurses or they are lining up for medications or they are deep in delusions and hahaha isn’t it hilarious that that one guy thinks he’s Thomas Edison?! Oh, or they are “highly functioning” and trick people into thinking that they are not crazy (because crazy people are normally soooooo easy to spot).

So, you know, one of the things Bones does, which I have discussed elsewhere, is it will present problematic content/ideas/beliefs in someone’s characterization, because it’s appropriate for the character, and then the surrounding episode will break those ideas down in various ways. And, as I’ve also said before, this doesn’t always work. In this case, both the characterization and the episode were ignorant.

It was obvious that Booth making ignorant and bigoted statements about the “loony bin” was appropriate for his character. And the depiction of mental illness in this episode was, I think, supposed to break down stereotypes, except that it did not. In fact, it failed pretty much big time and reinforced a lot of stereotypes.

Something that’s also important to note about this is that I think some viewers miss the nuance. People who agree with the bigoted views of an ignorant character are probably not going to pick up on the fact that the episode is deconstructing and challenging those views. Or it’s done so subtly that people can differ in their interpretation of the episode; look at the different ways in which Laura and I reacted to “The Dentist in the Ditch.” (Laura’s review of that episode and my review of that episode, for reference.)

So yeah, that was annoying.

So was the insistence on pigeonholing Arastoo as “that Muslim guy.” It’s curious that Booth isn’t “that Catholic guy” and Bones isn’t “that atheist girl,” but Arastoo needs to be “the Muslim guy.” Again, I think that the show is trying to break down misconceptions about Islam (as presented by Cam), but, again, it fails. If Arastoo could be a character who happens to be Muslim, I think it would work well. But instead he’s presented for Special Learning Experiences and it makes me cringe.

I also felt uncomfortable with the intersection of body modification and mental illness in this episode. The character who dies has horn implants and was born with a tail (which, as you can imagine, played into the themes of the episode in a major way). Initially I was really pleased that his parents didn’t remove the tail at birth, giving him a chance to make his own decision about it, something which I think should be done more often with infants who are born with bodies which fall outside the norm. But in this case it was clear that we were supposed to view the character as crazy in part because of the tail and the added horns; body modification=crazy, you see!

One of the key themes of this episode was the question of what happens when your faith is shaken, and this theme was explored from a number of perspectives, including both religions and scientific faith. It’s actually one of the things I really like about Bones, the exploration of science and faith and dichotomies and whether or not the dichotomy is really as cut and dried as it appears to be. I think that one of the things which the show is moving towards is that scientific faith and religious faith do not necessarily need be mutually exclusive, but they can become so when people are literalist and think inflexibly. (This should not necessarily be read as a firm belief that the two should be blended, either; I’m thinking specifically of people who live in a state of conflict because they believe that religious and scientific faith must be separate. People who separate them and are fine with that shouldn’t be obliged to change their approach to faith.)

I wish that they could stick to more of that, which I think they do reasonably well, and that they would tread more carefully when trying to provide learning experiences for viewers. I’d be curious to know if anyone with mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, was consulted for this episode and if anyone bothered to visit a facility where treatment for mental illness is provided.

Laura also has a review of this episode up at Adventures of a Young Feminist.

I recently started watching Battlestar Galactica, as you may have noticed.

I have a thing about television. This thing is that I really prefer watching television in chunks. I especially like it when I can just buy a complete set of a show and tear through it, honestly. I have a hard time keeping up from week to week, and this despite the fact that there are a fair number of shows I watch from week to week and sometimes even write about. But I get a deeper understanding and appreciation when I can watch things all at once.

I should say, more specifically, that this thing is about television I like. Television which I’m indifferent to can be watched week to week and that’s usually fine. This is because television I like is usually very complicated, with layers of story which unpeel over time. Look at Lost, which often has me literally lost from week to week because there’s so much going on that I have trouble tracking. Some things really read better when they are watched in a big chunk, rather than being spun out over months, in my opinion.

This, of course, puts me in peril because I often get spoiled on things because I like to wait. True Blood, for example, I’m waiting on in part because HBO doesn’t release week by week (to those lacking an HBO subscription, even those willing to pay), but I already pretty much know what happens and how it deviates from the books because it’s been covered so exhaustively that it’s hard to miss. Which makes me a bit sad, but there’s not much I can do about it, I suppose.

Anyway, by the time I became aware of the existence of Battlestar Galactica and the fact that I would probably like it, the show was almost done airing. I thought about trying to catch up and watch, but I decided to just wait and buy the series when it was released on DVD, since I suspected that I would like it enough to want to watch it a couple of times, and I have kind of a thing for DVDs. (Not least, this thing is related to DRM on legal downloads; a DVD I can take anywhere, trade, sell, give away, watch in multiple locations.)

So, anyway, I got all set to finally buy Battlestar Galactica on DVD as my sort of year-end present to myself. And I naturally went for the boxed set, because I like boxed sets and they  often have extra goodies. It was, you know, a bit pricey, but I figured that would be worth it.

Until I started reading the reviews. All of which uniformly said that the packaging was absolutely terrible. Clunky, poorly designed, prone to scratching the DVDs, and so forth. Apparently this is a bit of a thing with SyFy, is to have absolutely atrocious packaging. Which made me not want to buy the boxed set, as I am honestly a little bit fussy about packaging. (Oh, who am I kidding, what am I not fussy about?)

So, I went to buy season by season, not because it was cheaper, although it was, but because the packaging seemed more sound. And, you know, if I’m going to spend that much on DVDs, I would like to know that those DVDs will remain in good condition. And this is when I discovered that SyFy also packaged the seasons in a really confusing way. There’s season one. There’s season two. Oh, but no, it’s 2.0. And then there’s 2.5. Then we’re back to three. 4.0. 4.5. And what about all of the associated movies and specials (including the miniseries)? What goes where? What do I need to buy?

I swear to Pete, SyFy made it as confusing as possible to buy season by season. And they packaged the boxed set of the whole series so poorly that I seriously think it’s almost as though they don’t want people to buy the show. Is SyFy really just trying to drive people to download it? Is this the new scheme? Forcing people to download rather than buy DVDs? (Because, if it is, I think a lot of people would be more inclined to download illegal but DRM-free content, honestly.) Here I was, ready and willing to spend money, eager to spend money, in fact, and SyFy was almost deliberately thwarting me.

I ended up buying season by season, after poring through various resources to make sure that I was actually getting everything. I didn’t pick up Caprica or The Plan, and Caprica is of course being developed into a show of its own (because, if you have a successful franchise, why not spin it out?), and so I’d rather wait and see where that goes. All told, I ended up spending about $40 less buying season by season than buying the boxed set, and the only thing I missed out on, so to speak, was a model of a Cylon, which I have to say I wasn’t honestly all that chuffed about anyway, since I don’t really like random objects and clutter and thus see no need to add them to my house. I also ended up with two copies of the miniseries because I didn’t realize it was packaged in season one (since the return date has passed…does anyone want a copy of the miniseries?). While I would have liked a nice neat box rather than seven DVD packs, such was not to be, apparently.

I’ll actually be talking about BSG at some point, never fear, I just had to get my rant about the packaging over with first. Because, seriously, the packaging thing annoyed the frak out of me. Why would a company opt to make the packaging so confusing and poor? Because fans would buy it anyway, so it doesn’t matter? I am all for innovative design, which is I think what they were going with when they designed the series set, but it would be nice if that innovative design was also functional and not just pretty.

This is a bit of a Western-centric entry in this series, because my experiences lie primarily in the West, where clothing is very much gendered. Thanks to the imposition of Western values on other societies, I think that gendered clothing is probably becoming more of an issue in places where it probably wasn’t in the past, but because the West is what I know, that’s what I’m talking about today.

Clothing. We all need it, for a wide variety of reasons ranging from adornment to conformation with social norms. Chances are reasonably high that you have at least a small array of clothes in your house. You might have some schlubby pants for hanging around the house and doing various messy projects, you have some nicer stuff for going out, perhaps even some fancy dress and formal stuff for more serious occasions. If you’re a cis binary, you’re pretty familiar with the clothes you are supposed to be wearing, because you’ve been raised with them. They might not always be comfortable and you might not always like them, but they aren’t likely to cause a gender crisis when you put them on.

The gendering of clothing goes far beyond “skirts are for girls and pants are for boys,” although this is an obvious example of gendering. Buttons are on different sides in men’s and women’s clothing. Cuts are very different, with women’s garments tending to have a more fitted, tailored look, while men’s tend to be looser. Many clothing manufacturers make “unisex” and “women’s” clothing, underscoring the idea that “women’s clothing” is different and special and unique. Women’s clothing tends to be made with different colors, patterns, and textiles. Chances are high that, seeing something on a hanger, you can tell if it’s meant for a man or a woman.

Now, I do know some cis men who sometimes wear “women’s” clothing, for a variety of reasons. And I know lots of cis women who wear “men’s” clothes because they’re more comfortable, or because they fit better with their expression of gender identity. Some clothing stores have even capitalized on this by making “boyfriend” versions of women’s clothing; men’s clothing tailored for women, basically.

And I think that lots of people play with clothes and presentation in some very fun and interesting ways. I love seeing the ways in which people express themselves through garments, and the creative adjustments to fashion that people make in a wide variety of settings. I really enjoy looking at people who have clearly put some thought into their clothes and into how they are put together, and who pull it off. Whether it’s a wild look I would never wear which works perfectly with someone’s personality and expression, or simply a well-fitted conservative suit with just a hint of flair.

But for gender variant folks, clothing can become a snarled nightmare. Because clothing plays such a critical role in gender presentation, wearing clothes that fit your gender can actually be quite dangerous. Butch women, for example, are sometimes assumed to be men because of what they are wearing, and being outed as a woman can put them in a very unsafe position. Femme men who sometimes opt to wear skirts or other “feminine” clothing are assumed to be gay and mocked or beaten.

I’m not a binary trans person, so I can’t really speak to that experience at all, but given the struggles I experience and have experienced over clothing, I imagine that clothing is a pretty fraught issue for at least some binary trans folks as well as other members of the trans* community. Being told from a young age that you need to wear gendered clothing which conflicts with your gender identity is nothing short of heartbreaking.

For me, clothing is a constant struggle. When I wear skirts and dresses, which I like to do, I am read as a woman. I tend to wear more female-associated clothing in general because I like it and I like the way it fits, but I hate the way that it erases my gender identity as a result of the fact that clothing is so highly gendered. I hate the way that I have to erase myself, no matter what I wear; because of my body, if I wear a dress, I’m read as highly feminine. If I wear cut-off fatigues and a tee-shirt, I’m a butch woman. If I wear jeans and a cardigan, I’m a conservative and sensible sort of woman. I am always a “she” when people see me, no matter what I wear.

I can’t dress in a way which expresses my gender identity because my gender identity is not recognized, and doesn’t really exist, in the eyes of most people. I love dressing up at home and I have tremendous fun playing with clothing and my appearance, but I dread going out. Because I know that everyone who looks at me is gendering me, and I have no visible, clear way to express my gender. I can’t carry around a sign that says “genderqueer” all the time, after all.

I want clothes to be fun. I want to be able to enjoy getting dressed, to browse freely on all the racks in the store without judgment, to get excited about putting together outfits. Instead, every trip out the door takes away another little piece of me.

Here’s a question for you: Why are so many people so very sanctimonious about their environmental practices?

I think that, in general, people tend to be a bit smug about “lifestyle choices” in general, but nowhere is this more apparent than in some corners of the “green” community. And I find it simply fascinating, on a lot of levels. I also find it extremely irritating, not least because it tends to be extremely alienating. People might be interested in adopting more environmentally friendly practices and ideas if they didn’t feel like they were trying to muscle their way into an exclusive club, and if people weren’t so bloody preachy about the environment. So very holier-than-thou, making it clear that while you can try, you never really will be as good as they are anyhow.

It does seem like there’s always been a little bit of an undercurrent of smug exclusivity among people making choices “for the environment,” and that became much worse when it became trendy to be environmentally friendly¹. As soon as yuppies started adopting the “green” movement, it suddenly became about something more complicated than the environment. It became about showing that you’re up on the latest social movement, and, in a way, it became a competition to see who is more green.

What’s interesting about this competition is that it didn’t seem to be based so much on choices that people could make for the environment, but on buying the outward trappings of sustainability to make it readily apparent to society that one is “green.” The thing about making truly environmentally sound choices is that they are often rather boring. And, more importantly in a society obsessed with status and proving status, they aren’t always readily apparent. And we can’t have that, now can we?

For example, not having a car is, generally speaking, a more environmentally sound choice than owning a car. But, if you own a Prius, you can be superior about how environmentally sound you are. Whereas if you don’t own a car at all, it’s a bit suspect. I mean, are you really choosing to not own a car? Or are you just too poor? Likewise, not buying stuff in general is better for the environment than buying stuff, but, again, how can you show that you care if you don’t buy stuff? You need your green-branded consumer goods to show that you care, yes? And to show that you’re not…poor.

And, of course, the way to really show that you care is to lecture people, preferably often, about how their choices are not as good as yours, and about how much they need to improve. This always fascinates me when it comes from someone using more resources lecturing someone who is using fewer resources; being solemnly informed by multiple people that I  must convert to compact florescents despite the fact that my electric bill hovers around $12/month and I have multiple reasons for not using CFLs, for example, seems especially funny to me when it comes from people who are probably using much more energy than I am.

The “green” movement has eagerly adopted a lot of things that poor people have been doing for, well, decades, because they had no other choice, but the movement has managed to put its own capitalist spin on them, and to combine them with a healthy dose of superiority and shaming. Appropriation of practices from minority groups is hardly something new, of course, and it bears noting that in the process of appropriation, dominant groups attempt to make things theirs and to distance them from the communities they originated in.

So much of society these days seems to be about shaming. As though this accomplishes anything. As though making people embarrassed and uncomfortable and upset somehow converts them to the point of view of the shamer. I wrote about this just a few weeks ago in the context of the heaps of shame piled upon women, but it’s a larger issue. People are shamed for their food choices, for how much energy they use (or don’t use), for the books they like to read, for so many things.

The curious thing is that the shamers and ’splainers seem to think that this is accomplishing something, that people will mend the error of their ways if only they are brought to understand them. It’s a tremendously arrogant attitude, the “it’s all for your own good” and “I know what’s best for you” attitude and it’s really rather pointless. It usually just makes people look ignorant and pedantic and, well, sanctimonious. If you genuinely care about the environment, surely that means that you should support any measures to make a difference, and that the outward trappings are less important than personal actions. Before hastening to condemn someone for not using reusable grocery bags, maybe you should ask if your annual vacation to Hawaii has a larger environmental impact. Before telling people that they obviously don’t care about the environment if they don’t do X or Y, perhaps you should examine your own life and ask how you can improve.

Rather than assuming that poor folks are all ignorant and willfully recalcitrant, maybe you should give them credit for caring about the environment also, and for taking the steps which are accessible to them. Maybe they can’t afford to buy organic like you can, but that does not mean that they aren’t interested in food issues. And that doesn’t mean that they somehow fail at caring for the Earth. In fact, they probably use less energy and resources than you do, because your need to be showy about your devotion to the environment often ends up defeating the point.

New York Times: The Lens: Too Many Angles on Suffering

At one point there were almost certainly too many photographers in Haiti. But which point?

Washington Post: Obama’s spirituality is largely private, but it’s influential, advisers say

Another said that Obama has consulted religious leaders less often for his own personal guidance than for help walking through major public decisions — such as during the Afghanistan review process, when he sought advice on the ethical implications of war.

Just curious, if your faith is private, how come every speech concludes with “God Bless America”? Is there ever going to be a point when this is recognized as not cool and people stop doing it? Because it bugs the shit out of me. And I really really hope that the President is also consulting non-Christian ethicists for major decisions.

Fort Worth Weekly: Breeding Trouble

Across the United States, according to Humane Society officials, puppy mills – the term that animal welfare groups and others use to describe large and unsavory commercial dog breeding operations – are on the rise.

SF Weekly: Surfers think city’s exposed sewage tunnel warning is a bunch of crap

Either way, by even mentioning the sewage tunnel, Berry says DPW is “using fear tactics” to get support for its boulder-placement plan.

SantaCruz.com: UCSC Researcher Finds Albatross Tragedy

Her research prompted a Feb. 1 announcement by the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity that it intends to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its failure to protect the threatened seabird.

NY Press: Negro In The News

In fact, during the 2000 Census, over 56,000 people took the extra time to write in Negro as their race. Over half of those people were under the age of 45.

To those who are wondering if I’m going to write about Caprica, the answer is yes! But I will be writing about episodes a few days after they air because there’s a lag between airdates and Hulu appearances. Incidentally, I’ve also got a piece on Battlestar Galactica up at FWD/Forward today: “Battlestar Galactica: Disability In Space” and I’ll be writing more on BSG here in the coming months.

I’m really enjoying Caprica because I think that there are all these neat little nods to fans, but it seems like it would be reasonably accessible to people who haven’t seen BSG yet. It’s fascinating to see the groundwork being laid, and to see the parallels between this world and Classical society. Caprica is Rome, decadent and filled with grandeur and waste and profligacy, and it’s about to be turned on its head.

“Rebirth,” I think, centered around something really important, summed up in Amanda’s Graystone’s speech when she said “we create life and then one day we have to face who they are, what they become, and what they do.” This is clearly the cornerstone of the whole series, because it’s going to take us from the society of Caprica to the fall at the hands of the Cylons, the creations of humans which go far beyond what humans might have imagined.

Her speech also spoke, of course, to the disconnect that happens between parents and their growing teens as their kids start to strike out on their own and make their own decisions. One thing which made me really curious, though, was why Amanda thought it would be a good idea to out her daughter as a terrorist in front of a huge crowd of mourners.

I think it spoke to something which occurs in our society as well, which is that in situations like this, the parents of the terrorist/murderer are expected to mourn privately and to not discuss their feelings (unless it is to make profuse apologies for actions they probably couldn’t have controlled). Was Amanda trying to assert her place, to show that even though she was horrified by Zoe’s beliefs, she still deserved to mourn? And, of course, it doesn’t seem to me like Zoe was a terrorist at all; she got on that train intending to end up somewhere. She was caught, as people often are, by something outside her control.

One thing which was really interesting to me in this episode was the plural marriage, which included multiple husbands and wives cooperating as a household. I hope that’s something we learn more about. Caprican society in general seems to be much more liberal than our own so I don’t think that plural marriage is frowned upon, although it does seem a bit unusual, judging from Lacy’s reaction.

Speaking of Lacy, how exactly did an obviously lower class girl end up at what is very obviously an upper class school? Is Caprican society egalitarian to the point that everyone attends public schools together, or is there more going on here that we’re going to learn about later?

I’m also really loving the story of the Adama family. Who knew that Admiral Adama had such a past? And I am intrigued by the way that they are using cultural tropes and touchstones; the Adamas, for example, have a very Italian feel, and the scene in the market was clearly referencing any number of movie/television scenes in which the avuncular mob member is mentoring the younger generation. I also hope that we get to learn more about Sam Adama’s tattoos (and tattooing in general in Tauron culture).

And, of course, there’s Zoe/the Avatar. I am really curious to see where they take her. (Shall I call her the Trinity?) It seems like, for all my discomfort with religion in BSG, I am going to be plunged into another very religion-heavy series and it will be interesting to see how that unfolds.

With ongoing economic chaos is coming a flood of articles on saving money. You know the sort of thing I’m talking about. “10 Ways To Cut Down Your Monthly Bills,” “Five ‘Essentials’ You Can Do Without,” and so forth. It’s well-meaning, for the most part, and some of the suggestions in these articles are actually pretty solid. Especially for people adjusting to a world without easy credit, where it’s hard to understand the real world value of money, I think that some of these articles can be really helpful.

However, I am constantly reminded that all of these articles are written from a very specific perspective and experience, and for people outside of that, these articles can be less than useful.

For example, there’s one thing I see coming up over and over again in these articles:

Get rid of your landline.

Landlines, the argument goes, are “useless for anyone with a cell phone.” They’re a waste of money. No one uses them.

There are so many assumptions embedded in here, I hardly know where to begin. I should note, for the record, that I’m going to focus on the perspective of people living in the United States, because that’s what I know best, and that’s where most of these articles are aimed. In other countries, some of these assumptions change, rather a lot.

Let’s start with “anyone with a cell phone.”

I realize that this may come as a shock, but not everyone in the United States has a cellphone. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that cell phone coverage is not available in all areas of the United States. Like, for example, my house, where my cellphone does not work. (For me, the article should probably say “get rid of your cell phone,” but that’s proved hard for me to do.) If cellphones don’t work where you are, why would you have one? (Conversely, there are areas in the United States and in other areas of the world where landlines are not available; take, for example, in Australia, where there’s actually a subsidy for people in remote areas who need to buy satellite phones because they can’t access phone service in any other way.)

Another key reason is that cell phones can be expensive. Yes, pay as you go plans exist, and those are great, but not available in all areas, and not accessible to all folks, for a variety of reasons. If someone doesn’t have such a plan and isn’t aware of it, that’s one thing, but other folks might not be able to access a pay as you go for whatever reason, or be forced into contract plans, which usually run at least $50/month, in contrast with basic landline service, which is around $16/month and even less with Universal Lifeline Service (it would be hard to compete with the ULS price with a cell phone, actually, even a pay as you go, so for folks with very limited funds, that might be the only workable option).

An argument could be made that having a landline is a waste of money for someone who has a landline and a cell phone. But even that argument isn’t entirely valid. One of the reasons I bothered to plug a phone into my landline instead of forcing people to call my cell phone was that calls to my cell phone are not local. My number here is registered in Ukiah, which means that friends and businesses here who call me have to call Ukiah, and that’s a toll call. If they have cell phones, there’s no toll, but I know lots of folks who only have landlines, and they appreciate that they have a landline number for me. Forcing them to call my cell is wasting their money. Demanding that they buy cell phones which won’t necessarily work so they can call me without incurring a toll is a waste, especially since I’m home most of the time and my own cell phone doesn’t work there!

In my case, I have a landline and a cell phone because I had to have a landline activated in order to access DSL service, not because I wanted a landline, although I ended up finding the landline very useful when I realized that my cell doesn’t work at my house. Yes, there are other forms of Internet service available, but DSL is cost effective and functional for me, so it’s what I use. In some areas, DSL may be all there is, so people are being forced to get a landline whether they like it or not. Now, one could argue that there should be a way to buy DSL independently, so that people aren’t put in that position. But, until that option is available, I would not be quick to judge people who  have landlines and cell phones.

Why do I continue to retain my cell phone, despite the fact that it doesn’t work here and I am using my landline? Because I’m under contract, and since I get nominal service at my house, I can’t cancel my contract without penalties. And the same might be true of other folks who have landlines and cell phones. I think it’s worth noting that a lot of contracts are very restrictive; I had to sign a two year contract to renew service unless I wanted to pay a small fortune for a handset. And, at the time I signed it, it seemed reasonable. Now, not so much.

How many other people have cell phones they don’t use because they can’t, but continue to pay for because the costs of canceling the contract are high enough that they’d rather just finish out the terms of the contract? I’m not saying it’s abundantly common, but it does happen, and for these folks, it makes complete sense to have a landline.

Before making sweeping directives like “get rid of your landline,” it’s worth considering context, and exploring the fact that, for some people, maybe that’s not actually workable, practical, or particularly helpful advice. These sorts of “helpful” lists always infuriate me because of the embedded social, cultural, and class assumptions.

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Yes, there is video.

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