new "Cosmos" series "on probation" after seeing Episode 4

The first 3 episodes of the new “Cosmos” series, while somewhat different from the original Carl Sagan “Cosmos,” were close enough that I thought they might be a legitimate heir. But I’m putting the new series on probation after seeing Episode 4.

 

Sagan’s series was ground breaking, not just for its “science for the people” approach, but for its political stance. The original Episode #4, entitled “Heaven and Hell” looked at craters on the moon, for instance, and then showed footage of a B-52 carpet bombing Viet Nam. Even in 1980, this was risky stuff. Every one of Sagan’s history of science stories had a moral, and spoke to the political discourse of the times. That’s what separated it from spin-offs like “Nova.” (The new Cosmos host, Niel deGrasse Tyson, came over from “Nova.” I tried not to hold that against him, but now suspect that this is not an insignificant fact.)

 

Look at the story in this week’s Episode #4, about the guy credited with inventing photography, whose father was an astronomer who told him how stars are ghosts, because some have died out before their light got here. Looking at the stars is looking at the past. Another form of “looking at the past” is photography, which the son invented. Great little story, but one without a moral to apply to modern times. Sagan’s stories always had a moral that moved the political discourse of the day. Tyson's tale had no apparent larger agenda. In Episode #4, he told us about this father and son Herschel story, a bit about a few others, including Einstein, and he did a “thought experiment” of going into a black hole to find a whole universe, which is cool, but none of this leads back again to politics. Then Episode #4 ends with another bit about how Tyson met Sagan in 1975. The ghost of Sagan is at the bus stop. The imaginary bus arriving to pick up Tyson is a 1950s “Montgomery” bus. You could all but see Rosa Parks sitting up front, refusing to give up her seat. Of course I was moved, Blackfolk can be famous astrophysicists, and it is Tyson walking in Sagan’s footsteps. There is political value in that ending, important political value, and well worth the screen time. But given that we now have a black president, this was not the risky business of Sagan. Tyson is walking in Sagan’s footsteps with the new “Cosmos,” but I’m not convinced he is filling his shoes.

 

Contrast the new Episode #4 with Sagan’s #4, entitled, “Heaven and Hell,” a study in “telling it like it is,” and of the never-ending process of verifying what we hold to be truth as newer scientific techniques become available. Sagan demonstrated in Episode #4 the method of science; observation, hypothesis, testing, and independent verification. The Tungusta Event that starts Sagan’s Episode #4 was more than a story of scientific sleuthing, more than just giving Soviet scientists credibility at a time when tension between the superpowers was almost to the breaking point. It was a segue into comets, which used to be considered portenters of mostly evil, but became understandable as our science improved. It was 1980, the year Reagan won the Republican nomination, claiming, among other things, that we could survive nuclear war by just jumping into a lake while the blast went over us. In that context, Carl Sagan took the story about comets and drew a lesson about how easily an impact could be mistaken for an attack, setting off a real nuclear exchange.

 

In fairness, Tyson covered comets last week in Episode #3 of the new show. He used Haley and his comet as a way to quite effectively talk about Newton and gravity, along with a story of the theft of intellectual property, where a different scientist tried to falsely claim credit for some of Newton’s ideas. It was a cool story that gave me greater respect for Newton and Haley, but still, theft of intellectual property is hardly a leading issue of our day, except to the likes of Microsoft. Where’s the risk in modern “Cosmos?”

 

The original Episode #4 went on to tell us about how science, centuries later, could verify the tale of the Canterbury monks, who one night witnessed an impact on the moon. We learned how science can also disprove erroneous theories, but must not stoop to suppressing evidence or theory. Sagan told of just such a repression by scientists, of an erroneous theory. Turning to the camera, Sagan said they may do that in religion or politics, but science must never play thought police. Then packing the episode full of greatness, he went on to describe the multiple Russian Venera probes to Venus and what they had found. He used the stories of Venus to show how science proves and disproves theories by observing the facts, analyzing the data, finding the patterns. Not only is the world knowable, far-off planets and stars are knowable too. And based on all that, he spoke to the greenhouse effect, which makes Venus a "hell." On the comparative "heaven" of Earth, we have a modest greenhouse effect, seen by Sagan in the 1980 series as a good thing. In the 1990 update contained on the DVD with the series, Sagan returns to the screen to issue an urgent appeal, based on updated understanding, warning us of greenhouse-induced climate change here on Earth. He then offered up a 4 point program to save it all: reduce use of fossil fuels, develop alternative energy sources, implement reforestation on a grand scale, and raise the conditions of the world’s poor, as a way to rein-in growth and runaway populations. Risky, insightful, political, Sagan's work taught the technique of science to frame the issues, because understanding the big picture is a direct guide to action.

 

In contrast, we got an animation of a back-water astronomer and his son, and a moral lesson about theft of intellectual property. Not even close, modern "Cosmos," not even close.

 

Go find the original series, and watch them episode by episode. Start with #4, if you want, and realize the greatness of Sagan, all the more noticeable when directly compared with the imitation. 

Randy Rowland

the new and the old "Cosmos"

As an atheist and a red, the closest thing to "sacred" for me is Carl Saqan's 1980 PBS series "Cosmos." If I had to pick the "Communist Manifesto" or "Cosmos," I'd probably go for Sagan, that's how much the series, and the book it's based on, means to me. Sagan died of cancer here in Seattle a while back, but his contributions are greater than the sum of his days on earth.

Now FOX, of all places, is advertising that there is going to be a new 13 part "Cosmos" series. I'd automatically dismiss this as a horrible co-optation except that Sagan's widow, who co-wrote the original series with him, is co-author and executive producer for the new series. I'm heavily skeptical but kinda excited at the same time. 

At any rate, nothing like the advent of a new version of the "Cosmos" series to revisit the original. I direct your attention to an episode of "Indymedia Presents" I devoted to a review of the series a few years ago. It had been posted to the web back then, but when I went to find it for this email, I noticed it had been pulled down for copyright issues. Yeah, I used a fair amount of the series for the review, but under fair use rules, I should have been able to use it for the purposes of the critique. Whatever. I'm reposting it to Vimeo right now, so the following link should get you there. Whether you never got to see the series, or can't remember just how incredibly cool it is, or you do but would like a booster shot of Carl to the vein, I encourage you to spend the time to be inspired by the guy I I lauded so heavily in the opening paragraph of this email. The video is 28 minutes long.

The original series was a low-budget creation done only moments before the advent of computerized graphics, editing, etc. It's sort of fun to see how they pulled it off back in the day. For me, much of the wonder of the original series was in the stories Sagan told of the history of science, and the absolute joy Carl Sagan took in our collective efforts to know everything. Best of all was his willingness to be political. The "Cosmos" series can shape a person's world view, in a really good way. If you watch my video review, I guarantee you'll be eager to watch the original series, and curious about the new one.

I'm trying to stir up interest in viewing the original series in the comfort of my neighbor's home, one episode at a time, with discussion to follow, sort of like a book club. The first screening will be Monday, Feb 10, at 7pm. We'll start on time, the episode lasts an hour, and we'll have conversation for an hour afterward, then call it a victory for the people. If there is enough interest, we'll make arrangements at that time for screening the rest of the original series. If you'd like to participate, reply to me, and I'll give you the address etc. 

Naturally, we'll also talk Monday about the possibility of collective viewing of the new series.

Randy

To go to my video review of the original series:

https://vimeo.com/86173806

my first superbowl

I watched my first Superbowl on TV this evening. Seattle is a hip city, but there have always been fans, encountered on the light rail after a game, or impeding progress on my favorite sneaky car route when driving from the Northend back down to the Southend, where I live. But now Seattle was playing in the Superbowl, so tonight, I became one of the fair-weather fans, a Superbowl virgin.

Oh, years ago I might have walked into a room once when the game was on, but I think I just dropped something off and went on about my business. Of course, I've watched the original Superbowl ad where Apple Computer intorduced the Macintosh to the world countless times, but not during the actual game. I modified that Ridley Scott ad to make one for PepperSpray. It's one of my favorites of all times. Truth be told, a few years back, at the height of our video activism, I watched the Superbowl ads on my computer, after the game, studying what made them effective. I don't have a problem with sports, other than sharing everyone's concern for the players' health. But watch the football game? Nope, up until now, not even close.

But this evening I was eager to join every person in Seattle drawing breath to watch the game. Kay and I went over to our neighbor Rob's house to watch on his fancy TV. I don't have a TV, and Kay watches on one that somebody purchased shortly after they went from black & white to color. Hardly sufficient for such an occasion. In preparation, I had Rob brief me the other night, so I'd have some sense of what was going on.

The most important part, I figured, was the food. I made two different kinds of chicken wings in the oven; Buffalo wings, made with Franks hot sauce, and some ginger-honey wings that I marinaded overnight, and then topped with some peanuts and scallions after cooking. I also made a big party platter of veggies for dipping, and got Blue Cheese and Ranch dips, along with onion soup dip, hummus, and some home-made asian plum sauce. Couple bags of chips and an electric skillet full of hot dog coins, speared with toothpicks, cooking in BBQ sauce rounded out my contributions. Kay made one of her great all-from-scratch apple pies this morning and had sharp cheddar cheese and vanilla Hagen Das ice cream for sides, while Rob had steaks, beer, and two kinds of Safeway cake at the ready. It might have been overkill, but I heard that the game goes for a long time, and it didn't seem good to run out of anything.

I had barely sat down in Rob's living room, plate full of party food, when the Denver guy hiked the ball right over their quarterback's head. The instant replay was a close-up of the agonized quarterback, mouth gaping, watching the ball go by in slow motion. Wow, this IS fun! I watched every minute from then on.

After each Seattle score, I tried to remember to solemnly exchange a single firm handshake with Rob, whose TV we were watching. I had read in one of the Seattle alternative papers, of an effort to start a Seattle tradition of the dignified handshake to celebrate a touchdown, rather than all that jumping around and banging each other on their already-overworked helmets. So I did my best to be a good Seattle fan, and shake hands.

I didn't have any Seahawks spirit wear, but figured my vaguely-green Boeing sweatshirt would have to do. Silly, I guess, Seattle people think Boeing and Seattle are sort of synonymous, even though everyone else in the world seems to know that Boeing's home is now in Chicago. Zarya's husband, Steve, paints airplanes for Boeing, which makes us--like so many Seattle families--a Boeing family. She gave me the sweatshirt some time ago, probably just to mess with me. So even though Boeing just stole her husband's pension in a power play that would have made the Seahawks offense jealous, still, it signified "Seattle" and it was sort-of green. Besides, it was already dirty, as were my fleece house pants. I've seen enough commercials to know that a guy should be wearing a team sweatshirt, and some loose-fitting house pants, like sweatpants, or in my case, fleecy bottoms. Sports fans and stoners seem to share this affinity for comfortable pants, so that part was easy.

I believe in proper attire. Last night, the three of us went up to the Royal Room, in the Columbia City neighborhood, about a mile from home, to watch a great eight-piece Brazilian band. We were out on a Saturday night, so we all wore black leather jackets, and spiffed up a bit. The crowd was diverse, and dressed really well. We shook our booties until the band shut down. Hell, Rob was dancing with two women at once. Proper attire is always important. I wear an apron when I'm cooking or washing dishes, and I try not to vacuum without my hearing-protection ear muffs. So naturally I suited up for the big game.

The score, in Seattles's favor, kept climbing. At a certain point in the second half, we all started rooting a bit for Denver. Oh, we wanted a Seattle win, but nobody wanted to belittle Denver with a rout. In retrospect, I guess we could have shaken hands when Denver finally scored, but we missed that opportunity for ultimate sportsmanship. Nonetheless, we were relieved when Denver finally got on the board. Seattle always has a heart for an under dog, even while we're kicking their ass. Kind of like those stories of the father who tells the child he is about to whip that "this is going to hurt me a lot worse than it will you!" We especially felt for Colorado, our legal-dope club comrades. We wanted to beat them, not shame them.

After the game, feeling the flush of victory, we went outside while a couple young fellows from across the way lit off a small string of lady fingers, and then peppered the street with poppers, those little "pop cap" balls. We applauded their pyrotechnical rejoicing and called "Go Hawks!." It wasn't exactly a yell, but was loud enough to reward them for their efforts. On TV, local news crews were downtown, covering the victory street party. The crowds, as one would expect, were boisterous, but not violating community standards. After all, Seattle folks often stand patiently in the rain, waiting for the pedestrian light to change, even though there is no traffic.

It was a glorious Seattle evening, cheerful, and friendly, with the gentle aroma of ganja overpowering the scent of gunpowder, a perfect First Superbowl. Besides, they had an actual TV ad for "make love not war" right in the middle of the game. I got to see it, in context, real time, real Seattle. Go Hawks, indeed.

Beyoncé on a revolutionary “tough love”

The article in Seattle’s weekly “alternative” paper, The Stranger, piqued my interest. Beyoncé’s new album had the writer gushing over how it was a powerful feminist statement.  I looked at the thousands of songs in my music library and couldn’t find a single Beyoncé tune. I couldn’t even name one of her songs. The article suggested she is very popular with black women, so on an impulse, I bought her new album, Beyoncé, from the itunes Store. I wanted to know something about this queen of black feminism.

 

Luckily, each song has a music video with it, and the videos really give life to the songs. The Stranger writer had stressed the value of watching them in order, so I settled in to watch the album. She does take a strong “third wave” feminist stance, in the “we want respect and the freedom to be sexy” vein. And oh, boy, is she sexy. It was a delight to get the album for the music and music videos, but her sex-on-the-beach provocations wouldn’t have moved me to write this.

 

But then I got to the one called “Superpower.” It starts off low and slow, like the distant rumbling of a storm in the mountains. She walks deliberately, dressed in a sort of ultra-sexy urban guerilla outfit. Then she pulls up her balaclava, leaving only her eyes visible, perhaps a nod to Muslim women, but certainly in the style of Sub-Commandante Marcos, or Black Block anarchists. One by one, other women join her. The lyrics start as a poetic allusion to solidarity. More people join this march of the resolute, and the scene evolves to full-on riot with broken windows, Molotov cocktails, the smashing and burning of a cop car. The song hooks on “tough love,” and a flaming tire rolls across the screen. In my mind it is a clear reference to “necklacing,” the way South African rebels, in the struggle against Apartheid, dealt with snitches and other traitors. Necklacing is where an old tire is forced over the head of the accused and down until his arms are pinned at his side. Then he is doused with gasoline and set afire. Tough Love, indeed.

 

There is a scene where Beyoncé kneels by a fallen comrade. The lyrics are powerful:

                        “And just like you I can't be scared

                     Just like you I hope I'm spared

                    But it's tough love

 

The video shifts and ahead of the crowd stands a row of riot cops. Beyoncé, now dressed in clothes more appropriate for combat, marches in the front lines of the assembled people. The song turns “superpower” into the power of revolutionary love or unity. Solidarity, as every organizer on the left knows, is our source of mass strength, the one thing that even though we have nothing, we can have. The other day, here in Seattle, when others ended their inaugural speeches with thanks to their supporters, Seattle’s new socialist City Councilperson, Kshama Sawant, ended hers, fist raised, with the single word, “Solidarity!”At that moment, as in the Beyoncé video, we could “feel it in the air.”

 

On screen, the police line braces for the onslaught as the people charge. The message is deadly serious; all-out uprising, and the super power of solidarity. I watched stunned. My mind ran to a short video that one of my wife’s high school students made of the historic U.S. civil rights struggles. We showed it repeatedly on our TV show, Indymedia Presents, because it had that same no-holding-back feeling, ending in a speech by Martin Luther King that sums up his core philosophy:

 

            “Another thing I want to say to you is that hate isn’t our weapon either. I’m not talking now about a weak love. It would be nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. I’m not talking about that. Too many people confuse the meaning of love when they go to criticizing the love ethic. I’m talking about a love that is so strong, that it becomes a demanding love. I’m talking about a love that is so strong that it organizes itself into a mass movement, saying somehow ‘I am my brother’s keeper, and he’s so wrong that I’m willing to suffer, and die if necessary, to get him right!’”

 

MLK didn’t use the term “tough love,” but it would fit here nicely. The imagery in her video, especially the flaming tire, seems more in line with Nelson Mandela’s South African struggle, but the setting seems vaguely American. The cause is not clear, but the commitment to struggle is unmistakable, and the turning of “superpower” from a suggestion of global dominance to the secret source of people’s power is provocative.

 

And this, my friends, is mainstream popular culture today, a message from Beyoncé, beauty queen turned beach bunny feminist, now full-on revolutionary.

 

The Boeing Vote: A Lesson in How Things Work

It’s not that often we can see exactly how the system works, laid bare, without the usual makeup. The Boeing machinists’ vote provides a little practical example of how things work.

Not that long ago, Boeing made a surprise mid-contract offer to the machinists, that if they would give up their defined benefit pensions and several other benefits, the company would build its next plane in the Seattle area. The State bureaucracy, usually slow to attend to the will of the people, suddenly came to life, as politicians fell all over themselves to pass, in a single weekend, a six billion dollar tax package to entice Boeing to stay in Washington. The International Union, dancing to management’s tune, insisted over the local’s objection that the offer be put to the workers. But Boeing’s offer was overwhelmingly voted down by the machinists, who apparently resenting the sudden pressure, and in no mood to give up benefits it had taken generations to achieve.

The holidays came, and just like every year, Boeing shut down from before Christmas to after New Year’s, and the workers scattered on their vacations. Meanwhile a second vote was scheduled by the International Union, to take place before all the workers came back from holiday. At first I wondered if someone had done a quick analysis of who would be out of town, that the scheduling of this second vote represented an effort to cut out certain categories of workers to skew the results. There had to be some reason why the vote was scheduled to take place just a day or so before everyone was back to work.

Now I think the timing reflects something more fundamental than the demographics of who might be out of town for the holidays. The thing missing in those few weeks that Boeing shut down was the “shop floor.” If anybody understands the role of the shop floor in organizing workers, it would be the International Union. The place where workers talk it out, form their opinions, and build their strength is mainly at work, on the shop floor, and in the break rooms. With Boeing shut down for the holidays, there was no shop floor. Meanwhile every pundit, politician and press mouthpiece campaigned at fever pitch to sway the vote. The Seattle Times ran a daily front page series, featuring cities around the country who were scrambling to attract those Boeing jobs. Not a TV news report passed without a segment on how Boeing wasn’t bluffing, and how the workers owed it to the region to accept Boeing’s offer. One after another, politicians opened their mouths and Boeing’s voice came out, like some bad pod-people movie. The only way it could have been more obvious is if their eyes lit up when they talked. The company line poured down on the machinists like Seattle rain. If Boeing could engineer airplanes the way they engineered this campaign, nobody would have to worry about battery boxes catching fire. And through it all, the shop floor, traditional source of workers’ unity and power, was missing. When the once-rejected offer barely passed, the Seattle Times gleefully announced in a banner headline: “Done Deal.” It was a bitter pill, but clear lesson in how things work.

Randy Rowland

Field trip to see Spartacus in 70mm

This movie is one of the few I would really call "revolutionary." It was a favorite of the VVAW AI vets back in the day, who often referenced the "I'm Spartacus!" "No, I'm Spartacus!" solidarity scene. I always loved the sly references to modern times ("Damn those Republicans!") Even if you've seen it many times, its worth a trek to the Cinerama to enjoy this war horse not just on the big screen but in 70mm projection. The Spartacus novel was written by a blacklisted Red, Howard Fast. If you never read his novel "Freedom Road," about the American South during Reconstruction, you really should take the time to do so before you die. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo ("Johnny Got His Gun," "Exodus"), one of the Hollywood Ten.

If you can't remember the details about this movie, here's a paste from Wikipedia:

Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas as the rebellious slave of the title. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo was based on the novel Spartacus by Howard Fast. It was inspired by the life story of the historical figure Spartacus and the events of the Third Servile War.

The film also starred Laurence Olivier as the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus, Peter Ustinov, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as slave trader Lentulus Batiatus, John Gavin as Julius Caesar,Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton and Tony Curtis. The film won four Oscars in all.

Douglas, whose Bryna Productions company was producing the film, removed original director Anthony Mann after the first week of shooting. Kubrick, with whom Douglas had worked before, was brought on board to take over direction. It is the only film directed by Kubrick where he did not have complete artistic control.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted at the time as one of the Hollywood Ten. Kirk Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus, and President John F. Kennedy crossed picket lines to see the movie, helping to end blacklisting. The author of the novel on which it is based, Howard Fast, was also blacklisted, and originally had to self-publish it.

The film became the biggest moneymaker in Universal Studios' history, until it was surpassed by Airport (1970).

See you at the movies!

Randy