Time for another Takeidown

Alright, another professional basketball player has been criticized using an anti-gay slur. The only appropriate response to courtside gay-bashing is to unleash the awesome, hilarious power of George Takei:





Of course, Takei was held in an internment camp as a child, while WW2 raged, and speaks eloquently about his family experience:





In his autobiography, Mr Takei relates the following story from his teen years (ripped from teh Wikiwakiwoo):


Takei describes the labor of picking strawberries as a teenager, and how this gave him new understanding of the word "backbreaking". While working, Takei discovered a plan by other Japanese American strawberry farmers to cheat Mexican laborers that had been working with them, and he went and confronted the Japanese American workers to demand that the Mexicans be paid the same. This event gave him an understanding of the importance of activism and the difference that an individual can make.


Once a humanitarian, always a humanitarian- George Takei continues to fight against bigotry with class and humor. I think it would be a good time for President Obama to award Mr Takei the Presidential Medal of Freedom- the resultant right-wing headsplosion would be incredibly amusing.

Mr Sulu, Set Your Phaser on 'Burn'

Longtime readers of mine will know that I am a big fan of George Takei. I liked him in the original Star Trek, I respect his record as a fighter for civil rights, and I like his hilarious takedows, takeidowns if you will, of bigots and fools. George's latest 'burn' is a dig at Donald Trump, and boy is it a scorcher:

George doesn't suffer fools lightly, and he can deploy a thermonuclear snark-attack. I've written before that President Obama should award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Takei and Nichelle Nichols for their human rights work and their contributions to American culture. President Obama is a 'Trek' fan, possibly a Vulcan- awarding George and Nichelle the PMoF would enrage a lot of right-wingers, and the President doesn't owe those idiots a damn thing.

Fabulous Job, Jersey!

New Jersey decided to join the 21st Century today, although Baron Harkonnen in Trenton threatens to veto the bill, thereby putting the "big" in bigotry.

If Chris Christie goes ahead and vetoes the marriage equality act, then I say all bets are off, we should send a Takei/Tengrain tagteam (note to readers... no Takei/Tengrain slashfic, now!) to snark Christie's ass back to the goddamn Stone Age, from which he derives his bigoted "morality".

Congratulations, New Jerseyites! You did the right thing.

CORRECTION: The New Jersey senate passed the marriage equality bill- as of the writing, the bill had yet to go through the assembly. It's not awaiting Chris Christie's veto pen yet. Sorry about the screw-up... pay no attention to the man behind the cretin.

Set a Course for Eternity

It's not often that the death of a celebrity hits me hard (the death of Joey Ramone being one of those occasions), but the death of Leonard Nimoy is genuinely saddening. Mr Nimoy's alter ego was a guest in our house at 6PM Eastern Time almost every Saturday, when one of the local TV stations broadcast episodes of the syndicated Star Trek original series. Even though he played the stoic, unemotional Vulcan science officer, Mr Nimoy was able to convey a wry sense of humor with the mere lift of an eyebrow, and his terse responses to the emotional DeForest Kelley formed much of the appeal of the show (as puberty raised it's hairy, hormonal head, the usual parade of hawt space chix was also an undeniable part of the show's appeal).

Leonard Nimoy was one of those exceptional actors who was as noble as the hero he portrayed on television. He insisted on supporting actor's pay equity for Nichelle Nichols and used his clout to ensure that Ms Nichols and George Takei were included in the vocal cast of the "Star Trek" animated series (tip of the hat to Alicublog commenter FMGuru). Mr Nimoy was every bit the activist that castmates Nichelle Nichols and George Takei have been. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry likened Mr Nimoy to the "Conscience of Star Trek".

I'll forgive Mr Nimoy for his rare lapses in taste, such as lending his gravitas to the pseudoscience extravaganza In Search Of... and whatever you wish to call this. Besides his acting career, he was a film director, a photographer, and a poet. His last tweet, as reported by Tengrain was a perfectly lovely example of Mr Nimoy's grace and wit:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

Speaking of tweets, perhaps my favorite "Spock" moment from the original Star Trek series was his straight faced delivery of the line Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad."





And what other actor could emote like a ham while interacting with a pulsating pool of plastic puke without looking utterly ridiculous?





Cutting through the patina of cheesy Sci-Fi, that scene represents a plea for tolerance, mutual understanding, and the need to break out of a cycle of violence and vengeance... man, it's hard not to get a little misty-eyed even despite the cheese factor.

Also in the comments at Roy's place, Megalon clued me in to a Spocksploitation movie that Leonard starred in in 1973... guess what I'll be watching this weekend:





For many of us, losing Leonard Nimoy was like losing a friend, and to cerebral, cool-headed guys, a role model. The universe is a little sadder, and a little less logical, with his passing.

Ahistorical Nonsense Is Their Stock-in-Trade

For all their claims to love the past, Conservatives are always shoving history down the Memory Hole.  I've long maintained that the symbol of the GOP should be a mayfly rather than an elephant.  Perhaps the greatest example of this is historian Kevin Kruse's long-standing denouncement of Dinesh D'Souza's revisionist history about the Democratic Party and racism (hint, Democrat and liberal are not synonyms).

The current revisionist history is particularly disgusting... Dennis Prager, who is supposed to be one of the 'smart ones', has a particularly deranged take on the AIDS crisis:

Who's gonna tell him? https://t.co/6R8lRZKfGc

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 8, 2021

I'm old enough to remember the 1980s, and Prager's assertion that gay men and intravenous drug users were not pariahs is grotesque and mendacious... but grotesquerie and mendaciousness is all thes people have.

Its Fifty-Year Mission: To Entertain, to Inspire, and Occasionally to Provoke Discussion

Much has been made in the media this week about the fiftieth anniversary of the debut of the original Star Trek:





While slightly before my time, I fell in love with the series as a kid when it was in its long run of syndication on local television stations across the United States. Star Trek was occasionally scary, often funny, always interesting. The colorful menagerie of monsters and aliens appealed to my nerdy young self, and the cast of main characters seemed to have a wonderful chemistry (I was unaware of tales of offscreen rancor). Amid all the flashy, sometimes cheesy entertainment, I was (like many contemporaries) absorbing the liberal, humanistic values that I espouse today. Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek was even more liberal than the version which was aired on television- a female first officer was nixed by the network because execs considered it controversial.

Looking back, it's a bit appalling to think that the mere portrayal of an African-American woman being portrayed as a bridge officer was considered controversial, especially since Lt. Uhura was depicted by Nichelle Nichols (as critic John Kenneth Muir puts it "one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on American television")as a proud, intelligent woman from a United States of Africa, bearing a Swahili name. When she expressed a desire to quit the show, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr urged her to remain:





In the midst of the Cold War, when Gene Roddenberry added a character to appeal to the teenage demographic, he added a young Russian with a Beatle-cut. The character often delivered laugh lines about the Russian origin of various proverbs and fictional characters, but he was a far cry from the typical sinister Russian of Cold War propaganda.

The show wasn't perfect, having imagery firmly rooted in the male gaze... this screengrab gives the game away, one episode seemed to play the trafficking of women in a jokey fashion, and the miniskirts and bouffants of the women's Starfleet uniforms seem silly and dated by today's standards. That being said, the show also offered male eye-candy for viewers. Still, the show's values were remarkable for the time- in the famous 'Arena' episode, Kirk shows mercy to a fallen foe and another portrays a successful attempt to establish communication with an alien lifeform known to have killed humans... as a kid, watching a grown man emoting while playing opposite a giant pile of dog poop was funny, but the scene does achieve a sort of pathos:





As far as plots go, the show ranged from tragic romance to allegory to comedy. It also utilized the talents of such pulp-fiction luminaries as Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, and Frederic Brown- notably, the story editor and a scriptwriter for the series was a woman, D.C. Fontana (the show debuted three years after the embarrassing back cover blurb of Margaret St Clair's The Sign of the Labrys). 'Trek' was an introduction to Science-Fiction fandom for countless fans.

About those fans... even though the show only had a three-year original run, it hit a nerve and spawned a vibrant fandom, perhaps the ur-fandom. 'Trek' fans had an enormous influence on the development of fandom itself, having originated such concepts as the 'Mary Sue' and slash fiction (which has branched out from the relatively mundane Kirk/Spock to more outré offerings such as Kirk/Horta). Hey, as long as it's between consenting sentient lifeforms, who am I to judge? The show was the origin of many common tropes, and words and phrases such as 'redshirts', 'he's dead Jim' and 'beam me up' have passed into the modern lexicon.

Besides spinning off numerous television series, including an animated series, and a plethora movies, the series has inspired parodies aplenty and songs of various styles. For a short-lived original television series, the show certainly worked its way into the cultural landscape star system.

The cast of the show has had varied relationships to the roles, ranging from denial to acceptance. Their relationships with their fans has also evolved, with this 'SNL' skit being a perfect illustration of fandom frustration, even though William Shatner has come around on his famous 'Get a life!' line. While James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, and Leonard Nimoy are no longer with us, we fans still have William Shatner, who has now taken on the role of a beloved, but hammy elder statesmen, Walter Koenig, who has gone on to a career as a science-fiction author as well as an actor, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei have continued to advocate for human rights, with Nichelle having worked as a diversity consultant for NASA.

The enduring appeal of Star Trek is due to the show's evocation of a sense of wonder, and its optimistic view of humanity's future. The show combined action, humor, and strong characterization with a firm moral core. It exhorts viewers to put aside the petty animosities of 20th century societies and band together as one human family to achieve wonders. The society portrayed in Star Trek isn't perfect, and the lives of the Federation citizens isn't perfectly safe, but with a sense of unity, a sense of curiosity, and a sense of decency, humans can go out and explore the universe, and the species can live long and prosper. That's a message which still rings true a half a century after the show debuted.

It's Okay to be Gay, Go Away, Chik-Fil-A or Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against the Muppets

Today marks the day that Mike Huckabee urged his followers and fellow travelers to eat sodium packed chicken sandwiches to spite gay people. While many news outlets have characterized Chik-Fil-A's (damn, I hate typing that asinine name out) position on LGBT issues as "political", the company's actions go far beyond politics and hit ordinary people "where they live". To compound matters, the goddamn restaurant chain has violated the Ninth Commandment and bore false witness against the Muppets. This one is dedicated to the bigots at that godawful restaurant chain, though you should make a point to mentally insert "Fuck that Chik-Fil-A" into the chorus (need I even post a NSFW warning?):





Now, how about we get a new chain of fast-food chicken joints serving up a spicy tempura-battered chicken sandwich and call it Chick Takei? I think George would be a damn fine CEO and company spokesman.

Oh, and is there anything funnier than foulmouthed muppets?