When BSG began, i fell for starbuck as a femme superhero but needed the entire story to pan out before i declared the distinction. Lo and behold, with the finale of BSG: I have a new femme superhero.

I’ll try to be brief with this one….

A scene i can’t shake from the BSG finale is the one to which i feel the most connection. I think about this scene daily. I write about it in my diary. I actually did re-watch the scene and jot it down word for word, as it was nowhere to be found on any of the wiki quote databases. Without knowing why other bloggers and reviewers aren’t honing in on this scene, i can only imagine that we all connect to different stories. Maybe life is just this simple and this is mine. A toast to Starbuck, one of our new modern femme superheroes. the beautiful, strong and lonely swan song Kara Thrace, fierce enough in the end to remain true to the core of her being. Fearless enough to stay true to herself, to know who she was, to embrace challenge and stay true to her core. I will remember. I never forgot. Focusing on the what of Kara Thrace is the wrong angle. I suggest focusing on the how, who and why – I have found solace in my passion for her character. I am inspired by Kara Thrace as i am Beatrix Kiddo. Staying true to one’s self is not the popular path, but we carve our best futures by knowing who we are and honoring our core selves, even if lonely, challenging and painful. Starbuck’s jungian plight is the balance of light and dark.

I would rather be whole than good.

I am not afraid of who i am. I am not afraid of being alone. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of disappearing. I am the breakfast club incarnate. I am the girl who makes snow from dandruff. Don’t you forget about me. As you walk on by. Will you call my name?

And thus, the scene from BSG which resonates with me more than any other moment in the entire finale:

LEE ADAMA: “youre tempting fate”
KARA THRACE: if i have a fate then it is set. and thinkin about it isn’t gonna make it happen any faster
LA: “flying when you’re thinking about dying isn’t a great way of doing business. you’re gonna get scared, you’re gonna start second guessing yourself”
KT: i’m not scared
LA: “BUT…you said you think about dying everytime you get into a cockpit”
KT: uh huh
LA: “welll…hello…”
KT: it doesn’t scare me Lee, that’s what you don’t get.
LA: “what, so it’s Kara Thrace: fearless warrior …right?”
KT: No. I know fear. And i get scared, just not in that way
LA: “so what does scare you?”

KT:
(pours drink)
(apologizes for pouring drink)

…being forgotten.

““How come she never got sad?”
“She did get sad, Booboo. She got sad in her way instead of yours and mine. She got sad, I’m pretty sure.”
“Hal?”
“You remember how the staff lowered the flag to half-mast out front by the portcullis here after it happened? Do you remember that? And it goes to half-mast every year at Convocation? Remember the flag, Boo?”
“Hey Hal?”
“Don’t cry, Booboo. Remember the flag only halfway up the pole? Booboo, there are two ways to lower a flag to half-mast. Are you listening? Because no shit I really have to sleep here in a second. So listen – one way to lower the flag to half mast is just to lower the flag. There’s another way though. You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice its original height. You get me? You understand what I mean, Mario?”
“Hal?”
“She’s plenty sad, I bet.””

David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest: A Novel)

We went to DC with a simple, new, efficient, and logical message….we arrived in support of HR 2060, a bill with more than 100 co-sponsors spanning across party lines, disregarding internal strife.

We explained our support of small webcasters, the impact of the CRB decision on the vibrancy of the independent music business….and the fiduciary pea soup for small webacasters who want to pay royalties. Oh, and no return phone calls from SoundExchange since July 15. The terms “willing buyer, willing seller” and “interactive vs non interactive” hovering over the dialogue cloud of every meeting. It was Not Shocking, but it was surreal to ask members of the house and senate to help ensure our ability to promote art. on the internets.

the internets. a space where commerce and art have a functional relationship without borders – where art is profitable in both financially tangible and immaterial promotional forms. a space where communication spans the globe and the end result is no less than 4 pidgin languages ranging from lolcats (birthing what else, but lolcode) to text msg friendly jargon.

And apparently, a space where republicans and democrats who rarely agree (if ever) can….and do…. agree.

David Mandell from Me.dium wrote an interesting blog post a few wks ago, linking social networking and gaia principle, asking Will Social Networking Save The World?

“As usage increases, networks will continue to expand linking individuals on a more than causal basis around the world. If there are no more strangers, who is left to attack?”

It may be possible that the internets, with or without the google, is a platform for the increase of social consciousness in such a way that social networks yield an outer level of unification in which diversity thrives and art of all sorts can, and does, finda home. Social networks feed the fish, and the tail grows. and grows.

The open internets builds communities across borders, and, apparently, relationships between democrats and republicans who otherwise do not agree. Here is the press release issued from United States Senators Sam Brownback (Republican, Kansas) and Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon), just days after Soma FM, BAGeL Radio & reapandsow went to DC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS RELEASE
Contact Brian Hart/Becky Ogilvie
August 2, 2007

BROWNBACK, WYDEN COMMENT ON COPYRIGHT
ROYALTY BOARD’S DECISION
Call CRB’s Rates for Webcasters “unfounded”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)
today released the following statement regarding efforts to save
Internet radio:

“We sponsored the Internet Radio Equality Act because the Copyright
Royalty Board’s decision to dramatically increase royalties and apply
what we see as unfounded minimum rates threatens to devastate the
Internet radio industry. The fact is online radio services do not
have enough revenue to support what will amount to unprecedented
royalties. The $500 per channel minimum fee alone will deliver an
over $1 billion annual windfall to record companies, a windfall that
is not justified by any business or equity considerations.

“Now we are hearing that the recording industry is attempting to use
this aspect of the CRB decision to force webcasters to adopt
recording restrictions far in excess of the controls that have
governed broadcast content for decades. While we strongly support a
negotiated solution, we will not allow the minimum fee issue to be
used to force an agreement that mandates DRM technology and fails to
respect the established principles of fair use and consumer rights.

“After the July 15 deadline came and went we were pleased to learn
that SoundExchange was negotiating with webcasters, and we expected
to avoid pushing forward with this legislation. But, as Congress
heads into its August recess, we are troubled by the lack of
negotiating progress being reported. Broadcasters report that their
June 6 offer to SoundExchange has yet to warrant a response, and
webcasters report that negotiating meetings with SoundExchange are
proving difficult to schedule.

“Internet radio is crucial to many segments of business and culture –
to small and large webcasters building sustainable businesses; to
independent artists trying to make it in a crowded industry; and to
millions of music fans searching for new diverse music that corporate
radio generally does not offer. Innovation and creativity are the
winners if Internet radio flourishes, and are the losers if Internet
radio stagnates.

“If great progress toward a fair solution for webcasters is not made
by Congress’s return to Washington after Labor Day, then we plan to
take expeditious steps toward passage of the Internet Radio Equality
Act. We feel the Senate must take action, and we will make every
effort move the Internet Radio Equality Act to the floor.”

Brownback and Wyden are the Senate sponsors of the Internet Radio
Equality Act.

Sam Brownback
United States Senator – Kansas
303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-6521
http://brownback.senate.gov

Technorati Tags: SomaFM, BAGeL Radio, Sam Brownback, Ron Wyden, SaveNetRadio, SmallWebcasters

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to
rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’

You’d better look out below

July 4th is one of the ultimate American exercises in PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) symptomology.

holidays are reliably regular and allow for the loop of destruction to become a rewritten history for the beholder, creating a more soothing effect which assuages the guilt induced by innate knowledge of wrongdoing.

a restructured loop is possibly a healthy reaction in ptsd, the leading symptom of which is:
flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive memories and exaggerated emotional and physical reactions to triggers that remind the person of the trauma.

We’ve figured out a way around the memory of slaughtering indigenous peoples throughout this vast land of misperceived fertile ground…we’ve rewritten the past to induce our own joy.

yes, we hairless monkeys have the tendency to celebrate slaughter and trauma with food, wine and camaraderie without recalling the actual circumstances which make the “holiday” important.

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass spoke at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The event was held at Rochester’s Corinthian Hall -

“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?”

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

read the Frederick Douglass speech in its entirety here.