Blakes7 April 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

70 participants
295 discussions

RE: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by Louise Rutter 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

Steve K wrote: >There's a big ol' difference >between whether it's sensible for the police to apprehend and/or >prosecute, and whether you can be offended just because they didn't >forewarn you. But I can be offended if they lurk in places where it isn't sensible to prosecute with the sole intention of prosecuting because it's lucrative. I recall an instance a few years ago when some rare bird was spotted in the Scottish Highlands and apparently the police sat by the side of a road one night and booked about a hundred twitchers for speeding between midnight and 6am. Louise

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Re: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by J MacQueen 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

>From: Tavia <tavia(a)btinternet.com> >(Sorry, meant to put this in last post.) Why should one have to prove one's >*identity*? So my building society can be sure they aren't handing over my debit and atm cards to the wrong person. That's the main one. Bureaucracy again. Yes, prove the right to drive, to make purchases using this >bank card, to cross borders with this nationality, but why one single (and >trackable) identity? There's been many times in my life where the three >things I've mentioned have all been in different names. Only because that's the only identity I've got, Tavia. I've never established another identity, so I've never had to go through trying to get this, that and the other piece of paraphernalia. <smile> Hmm, maybe we should have another acronym: IMHE (In My Humble Experience)! >Surely I should have the right to putter round doing my lawful business >under as many different identities as it pleaseth me ? And if I want to >concoct a new one for the hell of it, then why not? Sure, go ahead. I'll even applaud it, the operative word being lawful. But without some means of establishing that this human being here is entitled to those things in her/his name, it can be awkward enough dealing with some organisations when you have only one identity to play with. I think I'd be useless at having several identities at once. Let's hope my life never has to depend on it. Regards Joanne "...It follows that in our view the test... had no application to the admissability of the evidence concerning the coffee incident." --Full Federal Court ruling, AHF paragraph 17-420. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: Perceptions
by Tavia 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

Fiona, then Neil: > Perhaps I've just been disillusioned by recent events on the lyst, but > Neil-- *how* does fandom in and of itself strip reality down to its bare > essentials and ask fundamental questions? >Cock-up on my part. I actually meant fan*fic*. I got confused between >the creative output and its source. Fanfic compares quite well to punk >lyrics -the naivety and/or simplicity (as you prefer) of the texts is not >necessarily echoed in the writers. And not all of the texts are either naive >or simple. Well, I for one am still confused. In my experience of fanfic -- limited I know -- I'd say that there was a strong positive correlation between complexity of the text and seriousness of the questions addressed. Tavia

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Re: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by Tavia 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

Joanne wrote: >This is the difficulty - we need something with the >advantages to ourselves, but with disadvantage to >bureaucrats and data harvesters, of an identity card. >Which, as you can imagine, is too difficult, because >that which is an advantage to us is also an advantage >to those we'd rather not have knowing much about us. I don't imagine an id card would have many advantages for the users, particularly not hitched to a system where one had to carry such, and presumably therefore had to go by a single name? I used to rather enjoy having three or four different identities... (confuse the bastards...) Tavia

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Re: [B7L] surveillance cameras
by J MacQueen 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

>From: "Una McCormack" <una(a)qresearch.org.uk> >I guess, in the whole identity card question, I'm firmly on the side of >'Yes, I >know it would make life easier for the bureaucrats if I carried one - >that's why >I won't carry one.' I see what you mean. But it's also a question how you balance a quiet life for the bureaucrats with a quiet life for yourself. I've never learnt to drive, and drivers' licences seem to be a sort of de facto identity card for many purposes. This causes wear and tear on tempers, including mine, whenever there's a situation where I need to prove my identity. There are alternative methods, of course, but no two methods seem to carry the same weight at the same two places. This is the difficulty - we need something with the advantages to ourselves, but with disadvantage to bureaucrats and data harvesters, of an identity card. Which, as you can imagine, is too difficult, because that which is an advantage to us is also an advantage to those we'd rather not have knowing much about us. Regards Joanne _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: Perceptions (was Re: [B7L] Lost in France ...)
by Fiona Moore 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

>From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net> > > To snip an absolutely magnificent post down to its conclusion: > >Aww, Fiona <blush> Wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it. As a fan, I'm not oblivious >to these deficiencies, but I'm also hard pressed to pin down the >counterbalancing merits. Deep characterisation? Hardly - most of the >characters are cyphers, two-dimensional at best (and yes, I am talking about >the likes of Blake and Avon here). Scientific accuracy? Don't make me >laugh. Social or political realism? No, please, really, *don't* make me >laugh. Taut, gripping plots? Credible visions of the future? What has >something like B7 got to offer? I think you answered your own question in part, when you referred to the fact that we're operating within the conventions of TVSF. Often B7 seems to be viewed in comparison with other programmes: people say "it's cheaper than ST:TNG, but with stronger women and harder-hitting themes." Or else "it's similar to Survivors, but with more of an edge." Or (quoting myself the other night when watching DS9) "Crikey, why doesn't anyone write scripts like Chris Boucher's anymore?!?" Within the conventions of TVSF, B7 does stand out in a number of ways that might be lost on the outsider (just as *Der Mude Tod* is a radical film in many ways lost on people who aren't into expressionist film). >source series itself adopts a position of 'mature naivety', recreating the >state of the empty child-mind waiting to be filled with knowledge of the >world, *whilst simultaneously* preserving a prior but knowingly incomplete >experience of that world. I agree with you about the source series, at least, to some extent. The best radical work, not just SF, often does strip down a problem to its bare essentials and deal with it in that stylised way. This isn't just naivete I think: William Blake and Robert Frost both wrote very stripped-down poetry, and I don't think you could call "Fire and Ice" naive: rather, deceptively simple. Fritz Lang's "Mabuse" films are often dismissed by their critics as sheer gangster-film schlock-- but the message behind them incurred a ban by the Nazi party as soon as they came to power. In sci-fi, "The Time Machine" was dismissed by many as sheer fantasy (and Wells IIRC preferred his contemporary-set novel "Kipps" to any of his SF), but it contains a subtle polemicism Wells never again equalled even in his tracts for the Fabian society. And to return to B7, I would also argue less for naivete than for the power of deliberate stylisation. It may be naive to strip a fascist society down to one woman and a handful of guards-- and yet in a way this is also the most powerful part of it, as we are lulled into a false sense of thinking that if Servalan is removed, the Federation will fall--but when she is removed, nothing changes. A sobering thought for those of us who thought that voting Labour would stop the privatisation juggernaut. The underlying Federation society is totally vague: we don't know if Servalan is running a dictatorship or a democracy--but that last possibility should give us pause, rather than set us dismissing the politics as naive. So I would say not so much deliberate naivete as deceptive simplicity, and actually I'd probably say the same about the punk lyrics you quoted too. >The boundary between the childlike and the childish can be a narrow one, >which might account for why something like B7, both canon and fanfic, can >often veer towards the juvenile if not the infantile. Hm. I'd agree with you about individual moments of the canon--the Vila scenes in Ultraworld, for instance-- but I'm not so sure about things as a whole. When I think "juvenile" in SF, I think of things like "The Tomorrow People," aimed totally at children with no pretense at anything else, or the faux-educational message of some of early Doctor Who's worse efforts. B7 has its silly moments, but I've never seen it being patronising or faux-educational. If we ask a simple > question like 'Why?' we might find ourselves answering with an equally > simple answer, like: 'The Jews'. And end up heading down an essentially > childish path of uniforms, banners, parades and rallies, assured in the > knowledge that no one will laugh at us because no one will dare. But if we > can retain our pre-knowledge of the world as it is whilst simultaneously > re-envisaging the world afresh, we might not fall into that trap. I've been coming to the conclusion lately that it's not following the banner that's the problem. Initially, large numbers of Germans (Italians, Spanish...) did *not* in fact follow the banners: what they did was more disturbing. They said "Oh, that lot over there, with the banners, the parades and the rallies-- they're just a radical fringe. Ignore them and they'll go away." Even under the Nazis, the majority of Germans were neither monsters nor mindless automatons-- they were people like you and me, who simply said "Well, they're in power, not much I can do but keep out of trouble." In occupied Hungary, by contrast, a concerted resistance effort was made and the oppressor held back to an incredible degree. I don't need, I think to quote back Paster Niedermoller (a Lippstadt man, hooray)'s famous statement to the effect that "first they came for the Jews; I was silent, I was not a Jew..." It is this essentially *adult* behaviour that is more dangerous, I think, than the childish behaviour you describe. >Fandom, like SF, like punk, like radical politics, strips reality down to >its bare essentials and asks fundamental questions. That, I think, is the >root of its appeal. That the answers are not always adequate underlies much >of the deficiencies of all four. Perhaps I've just been disillusioned by recent events on the lyst, but Neil-- *how* does fandom in and of itself strip reality down to its bare essentials and ask fundamental questions? Jenkins' assertion that fans are a bunch of heroic resistors of social convention has always sat ill with me, especially given that he is ultimately forced to admit that the fans he studies are usually very much *within* social convention. And I think, were you to go out and ask a group of B7 fans why they're in fandom, 9/10ths of them would say "To have fun, now hand me back my Scorpio clip-gun, I'm late for the masquerade." Individual fanfic stories and audios make one think, it's true, but those describe the activities of individuals--because a group has a few radicals, that doesn't necessarily mean membership therein is a radical act. While the show, as I said, frequently seems to me to be more clever than its surface would suggest, membership in B7 fandom in and of itself in no wise strikes me as a radical act. Membership in B5 fandom... now that's a radical act. Radicals should always champion lost causes :). Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Personal and political at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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D ot G - second thoughts
by Alison Page 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

I said - > Hey I like that bit! By my standards it's sparkling repartee. And then I thought, perhaps you dislike it Neil because it is insulting to disabled people? I didn't mean to overlook such a thing, but I never thought of it, I just thought how clever Tarrant was being. Alison ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************

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Nonfic on the Lyst
by Fiona Moore 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

I've had an idea, which I wanted to put to the Lyst to see if other people thought it was a good one. I belong to a Doctor Who mailing list called "Jade Pagoda," dedicated to the BBC and Virgin Doctor Who novels. They have a practice they call "Book of the Month," which means that every month, the person running the thread names a book, and everyone who wants to participate reads it, and then posts their comments, reviews, mad ideas etc. After the last day of the month, no more posts on that particular topic can be sent in. It occurred to me that something similar could be done on Lysator with the B7 episodes. Say every month we pick a B7 episode, and people who feel like talking about it, do. People don't have to go away and watch it, just read the script or make a few comments on what they remember about it or whatever, but it provides a common discussion point and B7-related activity for the Lyst. At the end of the month, we move on to the next one. In addition, it could provide a useful source of episode reviews and essays for people's zines and websites. If a month is too long, we could always make it a weekly or fortnightly thing (I suggested a month because that seems to be the time limit that works best for JP). Maybe you all think this is an oppressive idea, or whatever, but it would give those of us who don't write fanfic, or who do but also like talking about the programme, something to do. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane 52 months is a long time at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [B7L] More thoughts on Mellanby
by Fiona Moore 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

>From: "Marian de Haan" <maya(a)multiweb.nl> >Fiona wrote: > >True, but what happens is, he comes in and finds Mellanby dead, and upon >ascertaining that this is so, his first response is to shout "Orac!"-- he >seems more concerned about getting Orac back than taken aback at Mellanby's >death.< > >Considering that Orac is his only means of getting back to Liberator, Avon's >priorities here don't strike me as out of character. He must be kicking >himself for having let Orac out of his sight. :-) It's still a bit self-centred of him, and if he did like the fellow, it's a bit strange-- I mean, he just says "Servalan. Orac!" Not "Mellanby! Servalan! Orac!" Which still suggests to me that his death affected him no more than death usually does (i.e. not at all). >It's him leaving Orac for >Servalan to grab in the first place that I find hard to credit. To be fair, she wouldn't have had a go at all if Mellanby (or Dayna?) hadn't left the gun lying around in the first place. > >His one comment on Mellanby is "He got away from here after all"-- >which is a little bit sarcastic under the circumstances (frankly, I'm >surprised Dayna didn't clock him one for that).< > >I didn't interpret that as sarcasm but as a clumsy consolation attempt. :-) Perhaps not sarcastic, but still, it's an odd thing to say when someone you like dies. It's also a line that needs unpacking. If Mellanby had been fretting in exile, longing to get off Sarran, the line would have made a lot of sense: in death, Mellanby finally escapes his exile--and in that sense, his words might be a comfort to Dayna (although a consolation attempt is rather out of character for Avon-- and Avon's never clumsy, he's always very precise). However, Mellanby, even when he finds out he is free to go, doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, and says he'd like to stay for a while even if he goes later-- he isn't longing to get away. But if Avon has picked up to some extent on Mellanby's hypocrisy, it does make sense-- Mellanby, running away from his past, has effectively trapped *himself* on Sarran, reliving the past over and over in his undersea base, but failing to learn any lessons from it. In that sense, Avon's words can be taken to suggest that Mellanby's death has finally broken this cycle: Mellanby "gets away," not from Sarran, but from his own hypocrisy and guilt, killed by his own weapon. Additionally, it is worth noting how Mellanby's death happens: at the hands of the Federation, in the person of Servalan. The Federation let him go from Earth; now, when they return, they end his exile on Sarran in another way. The only way for Mellanby to ultimately escape the Federation is for them to kill him. >Avon's in a hurry to go after Servalan, but seems not to want to leave Dayna >behind. Does he feel responsible for her out of guilt because he didn't >prevent Servalan from killing her father? I kind of doubt it, knowing Avon :). Dayna expresses anger and rage at Servalan and wants to kill her-- I think it's more likely that Avon, as always, is pursuing his own agenda (getting Orac back) and if Dayna wants to come along for her own reasons (revenge) then fair enough. And after all, Dayna knows the territory, and he doesn't, so it makes perfect sense to bring her along. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Vengeance is mine, saith http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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free lunches and offlist posting
by Tavia 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

Neil: >It's a moot point whether it was my fault for not checking >who that particular email was addressed to, or hers for >not removing the [B7L] from the subject header, but I >assumed it was a Lyst post and replied accordingly. Oooh, you do know what the FC punishment for such offences is..... Tavia

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Blakes7 April 2001