Bones: The Dentist in the Ditch

This week’s episode of Bones was kind of a mixed bag for me. There were some things I liked about it, and some things I really didn’t. That aside, I do feel like we saw some interesting growth going on with the characters. They all learned some things and advanced in some way during this episode, and I like it when that happens. Assume spoilers galore beyond this point, obviously!

I really disliked the handling of hep C in this episode. A lot, actually. One of the suspects is a woman who worked as a dental hygienist who reported the deceased (a dentist) for giving her hep C in a needlestick incident. It turns out that she did this to cover up an affair and the dentist was blameless. Which, whatever, fine, it was a plot point.

The problem I had was that the show reinforced, several times, that heterosexual sex is a common mode of transmission for hep C. That is simply not true. A needlestick is actually far more likely, despite what Booth may think, because transmission requires direct blood to blood contact. Suggesting that sexual contact is a mode of transmission was bad medicine, since it’s pretty widely recognized as a low risk factor currently.

I also didn’t like that the show mentioned that she was fired but didn’t elaborate; it was unclear if it was because of her grievance (which seemed to be still under investigation) or because of her hep C. In either case, it wouldn’t be legal.

I was really interested to see how they handled Padme, Jared’s girlfriend (now fiance). Booth got himself all worked up because she had a past as an escort, very in keeping for moralistic Booth, and Brennan rightly said “who cares?” The real test came at the end of the episode, when we learned that Padme and Jared had discussed it openly with each other. Booth was convinced that Padme’s past meant she was a bad person, and that she was covering it up; it was nice to see the show take Booth’s assumptions down.

Speaking of assumptions! I really liked the handling of gay men on this episode. The show turned some stereotypes on their heads in ways I really liked, like the line “yeah, I’m gay and I hunt. Get over it.” The episode really emphasized that, you know, gay men don’t fit into a stereotypical box (“you doubt a gay man can play football and be a dentist?”) and that there are “typical gay” behaviours, no way to easily tell a gay man from a straight one, and the episode managed to touch upon the issue of being closeted in a really great way as well. I even detected a sly reference to the questionable value of don’t ask, don’t tell when Booth said “gay guys saved my life in battle more than once.”

Zing.

“The Dentist in the Ditch” also featured a nice nod to neurodiversity and the value of including neuroatypical folks when Mr. Nigel Murray shouted “rhubarb!” and came up with a brilliant scheme for cleaning the bones. Hodgins said that in the future, anyone talking trash about how Nigel Murray’s brain worked could come talk to Hodgins, and Murray said that, you know. People already do that. There was a nice little quiet take there where Hodgins looked at Murray and it was like a little light went on, a light that said “different brains are valuable! And people with different brains are often discriminated against! And that sucks!”

“I don’t know if you were wrong, but I fail to see the point of being right,” Brennan says at the end of the episode. I really loved this line because it seemed like a bit of a departure for Brennan, who usually focuses on logic and being right. We really saw her wrestling with things and growing during this episode, and thinking about the fact that some things are more complicated than wrong/right. Overall, it was a good tagline for the episode as a whole.

Looking back over my thoughts on this episode, I think that my response was actually predominantly positive, it’s just that the episode was kind of soured for me by the treating of hep C. I felt like “The Dentist in the Ditch” handled LGBQT and neurodiversity issues really well, which excited me, and maybe that’s what made the hep C thing feel even worse; I saw that the show is capable of doing things right, and question why they felt the need to repeat erroneous information which contributes in a very real way to stigma for hep C patients.

Honestly, if it weren’t for that, this might have been my favourite Bones episode all season.

Laura, on the other hand, did not respond as positively to this episode! Go check out her review at Adventures of a Young Feminist.

29 January, 2010 – 7:36 pm | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, LGBQT, reviews, television | Tagged , , , |

Is There A Point At Which the Paywall Model Is Successful?

A newspaper puts up a paywall. Three months later, there are 35 subscribers. Too bad someone just spent a small fortune acquiring that newspaper, eh?

There’s a lot of debate about the paywall model, and whether or not it works, and where, and why. As a creative professional, I’m growing more and more concerned with the fact that prices for content are falling in an environment where so much content can be obtained for free or at very low cost. (Including the content on this very website; hoisted by my own petard! I contribute to the very system which is crushing people like me.) And I’m growing especially concerned with the way in which writers are exploited. People seem to forget sometimes that writing is work.

Freelancers are increasingly being paid less for their work. Hell, a lot of websites have achieved the ultimate coup and gotten people to write, submit works of art, and make videos for free. Things which companies would have paid for in previous eras are being handed over on a silver platter by users who are desperate to feel connected, to feel like they matter, to have their voices heard. Some of these people do unpaid work because they think it will lead to paid work (it does, for a lucky few) and some people just don’t seem to care.

Other sites pay a pittance to writers who churn out large amounts of content, and these sites make money every time they license that same content for republication somewhere else. Or they offer writers “ad sharing” agreements which might work for people who can generate a lot of content, but which are effectively worthless when it comes to most folks. And many people don’t have the ability to make a leap of faith, turn out content they aren’t paid for up front, and wait to see if ad revenue rolls in.

Newspapers are having their budgets slashed, which means that they’re less able to commission pieces from opinion columnists, and some rely on columnists who will write for free because they’re seduced by a name; some reason that just being published under the right masthead will help them get their foot in the door somewhere else, somewhere where they will be paid, somewhere they can build a career. The same budget cuts result in slashing funding to foreign desks and pinching pennies wherever possible, even if it leads to bad journalism.

Some bloggers get blog to book deals, sure. But they’re rare. And the terms might surprise you. Although many people seethe with jealousy about them, deals for first books, even for bloggers, usually don’t come with awesome contracts, and who’s to say that you will get picked up for another contract? After all, there are hundreds of people lined up waiting behind you with their free content, and the publisher can just move on to one of them.

Julie and Julia may have been made into a movie, but that’s one blog. How many blogs are there? Well over 100 million. Who’s to say who gets lucky and who doesn’t, but the bottom line is that unless you are willing to aggressively hype yourself, to deal with all the ugliness of the blogosphere and come out swinging, and potentially to compromise what you want to get what you need, you’re probably not going to go far on a blog.

As concerns grow about the increasingly dangerous climate for creative professionals, I’m seeing a return of the paywall. Once, paywalls were everywhere. Over time, they broke down, because sites like the New York Times realized that they couldn’t compete with sites which were giving stuff away. Why subscribe to the Times when you can read the HuffPo, or other sites which syndicate content? And, now, why subscribe to the Times when you’ve already had the milk for free? And apparently ad revenue isn’t supporting as much as we thought it was, because people are increasingly citing lack of ad revenue when they announce that they are putting up paywalls. Sites like Hulu, which started out free, are now pondering the creation of paid subscriptions.

Is there a point at which the paywall model is successful? I honestly don’t know. Something definitely needs to change here, because this model may become unsustainable, and content is already suffering as a result of it. The expectation of free and low-cost content has lowered standards, and the next generation of creative professionals is being reminded that their work isn’t valued anymore, at least, not in the same way. As in, the way which ends with food on the table.

The system of the past was criticized for creating a creative elite. This system is touted because anyone can be published. But are we losing the signal for the noise? And who is to say that we aren’t creating a new creative elite? Everyone knows Dooce. Not everyone knows Chally. Why is that? Have we really just maintained the infrastructure of the previous system while lying to ourselves with lofty claims about how information likes to be free? And will there come a point when creative work is valued again?

29 January, 2010 – 10:45 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in economy, Everything, technology | Tagged , , |

Smoky Keys

In Cold Blog: “I’m Going to Kill Myself a Gay Tonight” (h/t to Vicki)

Ergo, Chavarria is not eligible for any compensation from the state board. If they were a straight couple, it would not be a problem.

Blogtown: Breaking: Does Whole Foods’ New “No Fatties” Employee Incentive Program Break the Law?

Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) has “serious concerns” about a new Whole Foods employee incentive program aimed at reducing the company’s health costs.

SF Weekly: City hounds the homeless for dog licenses

This is billed as a temporary fix to force the supposed hordes of drugged-out, smelly, jobless young bum-punks roaming Haight Street to move along and stop frightening tourists, neighbors, and shoppers.

L’Hôte: The “Apple Advantage” is class signaling and always has been (via Racialicious)

Being more expensive than another product of similar capability isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

Weekly Dig: Think Of the Bathrooms!

“It doesn’t make any sense. We’re already using those bathrooms. It’s not about using bathrooms. This is about people not being discriminated against,” he said.

C-Ville: UVA increases low-income student enrollment

The nation’s top public universities are cushioning the cost of college for those students who need it the least, according to a report by The Education Trust, a nonprofit organization.

East Bay Express: Plan B for Measure B

On a more basic level, argues City Attorney Teresa Highsmith, the document is “a little unfair to the community, because this development agreement was not negotiated with the city, and the community is being asked to vote on it.”

Guardian: Feminism shouldn’t be exclusive

Even though this book is a welcome addition to the contemporary feminist canon, it excludes so much that would be of interest or concern to those who aren’t British, middle-class or heterosexual.

29 January, 2010 – 10:01 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , |