For the past couple of days, there’s been another problem with the RSS feed, caused by a bug in the new version of WordPress. It’s been fixed.

Burger from Wendy’s. Feed the cats. Fifteen minutes of a bad movie on Showtime. Search the net for a font I need. Write this.

I’m getting to be a very boring humanoid.

I’ll post something about *Hard Time – Season 2* in the next day or so — really.

I…dunno.

Maybe it’s just my eyes, but I swear it looks more like it says “DG”.

A basic truth of American politics: When any debate has been reduced to words of one syllable, the Republcans have already won it.

The latest example: The battle over our Proxident’s judicial appointments, an argument which the Republican stupefaction machine has successfully reduced to the phrase, “Up-or-down vote.”

There have been distortions on both sides of this debate, certainly, but in my opinion, the Republicans’ warping and wefting has been an order of magnitude greater than that of the other side.

Judge — no pun intended — for yourself. Here’s
FactCheck.org‘s article on the ads being run by the two sides.

John Dvorak’s blog offers a more biting perspective under the title, “Pro-Age Discrimination Judge Supported by New Christian Right Agenda.” Of course, that headline utilizes words of more than one syllable, so we can safely assume nobody will pay any attention.

• I missed posting a couple of days this week. Since last Wednesday, when that good news arrived, I’ve been a little…disoriented. I suppose that happens when your world suddenly changes, and I’m finding out that it takes more than a few days to adjust to a radically altered reality. I’ve spent a lot of time in introspection the past week — too much time, probably — but I don’t think the self-re-examination is over quite yet.
• Wizard‘s website did a short article on the Man-Thing film last week, including some snarky comments from me. Here’s the link, if you’re interested. There’s also a write-up on yours truly, Hard Time, and the rest of my alleged career in the current print edition of Wizard. (I haven’t seen it yet. Have any of you? How did it turn out?)

This coming Friday, *Star Trek: Enterprise*, the sorely misconcieved prequel to the original *Star Trek* series, will air its final first-run episode. What went wrong — with *Enterprise* and *Star Trek* in general — has been a hot topic among the writers I know. Being a closet Trekkie and having co-written an episode of *Next Generation*, it’s something I’ve been thinking about, too.

Finding the flaws in *Enterprise* is a bit like shooting Changelings in a bucket — the casting, the “where everybody has gone before” problem, and so on — but the roots of *Enterprise*’s failure in fact date back to some of Gene Roddenberry’s prescriptions for the *Next Generation* series, specifically his belief in the perfectability of mankind and his insistence that *Star Trek* present a vision of a “hopeful” future.

I met Gene a few times. Beth Slick (then Woods) and I worked directly with him on the *TNG* episode. I admired his faith in humanity’s future — I believe it was absolutely genuine — and his determination to see *his* vision of *Star Trek* realized *his* way.

Unfortunately, I think Gene sometimes missed the point of what he had created. *Trek*’s uniqueness wasn’t the “hopeful future” concept. That was mostly a hook manufactured by reporters trying to explain the devotion of the fans.

The uniqueness of *Star Trek* is that it was a television show — let me repeat that: a television show — that dealt in *ideas*.

Illusion versus reality, logic versus emotion, the sanitizing of war, alternate realities, man’s relationship to technology — *big stuff*, enormous themes that, yes, were sometimes handled clumsily, but which the rest of television never even approached. You forgave the spotty special effects, the cheap sets, and Captain Kirk’s tendency to bloviate, because the scope of the stories was so compelling.

And the characters *reacted* to what was going on around them — with wonder, with compassion, with anger, with lust — you know, like human beings with actual *personalities*?

Beginning with *Next Generation*, the reservoir of wonder and passion sprang a leak. The final frontier and its denizens were becoming commonplace — not to viewers (yet), but, unforgivably, *to the characters themselves*. The stories got smaller. Debating grand ideas was replaced by endless niggling over minutiae, not how whole societies worked but how one subsystem of the ship worked. It was like watching the Lincoln-Douglas debates degenerate into an SDS meeting.

The conceptual shrinkage reached its inevitable conclusion with the *Enterprise* title sequence and its theme song, the alternately unctuous and self-pitying “Faith of the Heart.” Its message? “They’re not gonna hold *me* down no more.” “Goin’ where *my* heart will take me.” “*I* can do anything.” “*I* can reach any star.”

The song is an affirmation, and a lame one at that, set to music. It redefines the final frontier as me, me, me.

Join Starfleet: We’ve Got a Massive Hard-on for Ourselves.

I suppose there’s a place for unconditional self-congratulation, probably in a shrink’s office in Beverly Hills. But, as the Organians once pointed out, it’s somehow inappropriate on a mission to explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. For that job, curiosity might work better. Along with a dash of humility. Oh, and maybe a willingness to reassess one’s own beliefs and values on a regular basis.

Anyway, the audience finally tuned out, and now *Star Trek* is going away for a while. Personally, I think that’s a good idea. Give it a rest. Give people a chance to miss it. And, a couple of years from now, let a new crew of writers and producers, burdened with fewer preconceptions, take whack at making Gene Roddenberry’s universe interesting again.

Bright Eyes on the Tonight Show. The song is called “When the President Talks to God.” You have to see and hear this to believe it was allowed to air on network television.

Thanks to Mark Evanier, who posted the link on his “news from me” blog.

My friend Chuck Carter has just opened a new blog titled “Shaking Off the Myst”.

Chuck is a phenomenal digital artist, who was one of the designers of *Myst*, arguably the first megahit computer game. Chuck and I *almost* got to work on a couple of projects together a few years ago, but they fell victim to the dotcom crash. One rather bizarre digital sketch survives, however:

Yup. That’s a digital Destroyer Duck.

Chuck plans to talk about the history of computer gaming and graphics — and, I presume, the future of the field — from the perspective of someone who was there at the beginning. If you’re at all interested in game development or the evolution of computer graphics, you’ll find his opinions and recollections fascinating.

While America wallows in the story of the runaway bride, something a little more important has been going unreported in the broadcast media.

The *Los Angeles Times* did cover it, though, on April 24TH:

…in impoverished southeast Missouri, nurses at a family health clinic stash drug samples for patients they know won’t be able to afford their prescriptions after their [Medicaid] coverage is eliminated this summer. Doctors try to comfort waitresses, sales clerks and others who will soon lose coverage for medical, dental and mental healthcare.

And who’s responsible?

The federal government helps pay for Medicaid, but in the coming fiscal year, the federal contribution will drop by more than $1 billion because of changes in the cost-share formula. President Bush has warned of far deeper cuts to come; he aims to reduce federal spending on Medicaid by as much as $40 billion over the next decade.

Imagine that! Less than *half* the downpayment on the war in Iraq — the famous $87 billion that Kerry voted for before he voted against — would have paid for ten years of Mr. Compassion’s intended Medicaid cuts.

I’m sure southeast Missouri went Republican in 2004. It’s Bible belt country, one of those places where gay marriage is considered a bigger threat than unaffordable heart medication. Missouri elected a hardass Republican governor last time, too.

I hope the residents of my home state can live with what they’ve done to themselves.

You’ll need to register at latimes.com to read the entire story. I recommend you do.

It’s horrifying, and it’s coming soon to a State or Commonwealth near you.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I marvel at the breadth and sweep of Grant Morrison’s new *Seven Soldiers* project — seven four-issue miniseres, bookended by extra-length prologue and epilogue chapters, all released over the span of about a year. And that’ s not even the total of Grant’s output for the year. Incredible. How can any one writer…?

Uh, wait.

My life, circa 1975: Dialogue current *Defenders*. Plot next *Man-Thing*. Dialogue current *Man-Thing*. Plot next *Marvel Two-in-One*. Dialogue current *Marvel Two-in-One*. Plot next *Tales of the Zombie*. Dialogue current *Zombie*. Dialogue new current *Defenders*…etc., etc., etc.

*I* used to write about four books a month. Forty-eight freaking books a year. *I* did. Not “any one writer” — *this* one writer!

None of which is meant to disparage Grant’s achievement. Rather, it’s meant as contrast to the following:

My life, circa 2005: Finish *Hard Time* script. Collapse for two days.

I’ve got an existential problem here.