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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Rocks and Shoals (Review)
The opening arc of the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is one of the most ambitious storytelling experiments in the history of Star Trek.
To be fair, it is not entirely unique. In some ways, it mirrors the storytelling arc that unfolded across Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Both Kirk and Sisko are separated from their home and from their first officer and from their iconic command, before eventually finding their way to reunite with both. Obviously, a three-film trilogy is distinct from a six-episode arc, even before talking about the tonal, thematic and plotting differences between those three iconic films.
The Jem'Hadar warship that fell to Earth…
More than that, the success of the this arc would embolden the production team. They would attempt an even more audacious experiment to close out the seventh season of the series. The sixth season opened with six interconnected stories following the Cardassian reoccupation Terok Nor, building to Sisko's retaking of the station. The seventh season pushes that even further, with a much more tightly integrated ten-episode arc that attempts to tell a single cohesive story. It is an even bolder creative decision than this arc, committing more strongly to the premise.
Ronald D. Moore's departure from Star Trek: Voyager early in its sixth season would turn these experiments in serialisation into an evolutionary dead end for the franchise. It would be four years before Rick Berman and Brannon Braga would attempt to a tell a story on that scale. Indeed, faced with declining ratings and the spectre of cancellation, Star Trek: Enterprise attempted what was (on the surface at least) the even more ambitious attempt at a season-long arc across the entirety of the third season.
Between a rock and a hard place.
Still, the six-episode arc that opens the sixth season of Deep Space Nine remains an impressive moment in the history of the franchise. Indeed, contrasted with the sprawling ten-episode arc that closes the series or the season-long arc on Enterprise, it could reasonably be argued that this six-episode stretch does a stronger job of balancing the integrity of individual episodes with the demands of the larger arc. These six episodes are all very strongly connected to one another, with a clear sense of story and character progression, but they also retain their own identities within that.
Rocks and Shoals might be the best example of this, an episode that delicately balances its own storytelling with the needs of the arc as a whole. Rocks and Shoals is at once a great episode in its own right and an essential part of a much larger story.
Express elevator to hell.
The sixth season of Deep Space Nine was controversial, for a number of different reasons. Most obviously, the whole idea of the Dominion War represented a challenge to Gene Roddenberry's utopian ideal. Many fans, and some members of the larger Star Trek family, took exception to the idea of building a Star Trek series around a large-scale intergalactic conflict. This was especially the case among the more traditionalist segments of the base, those who tasked themselves with curating the legacy of Gene Roddenberry.
However, there were other tensions at play at this point in the run. The six-episode arc at the start of the sixth season comfortably pushes Deep Space Nine into a very serialised approach to storytelling. This represented a challenge to a franchise that had long prided itself on its episodic storytelling, the cornerstone of its success in syndication. The idea was that most Star Trek episodes could be enjoyed in any order by anybody, rendering the franchise accessible to those who might watch casually at home without needing to catch every episode.
No guts, no glory.
To be fair, it is not as clear-cut as that made it sound. The franchise had done any number of impressive two-part stories; Deep Space Nine had even opened its second season with an ambitious three-parter in The Homecoming, The Circle and The Siege. However, the story that opens the sixth season cannot readily be described as a "six-parter." Most obviously, Rocks and Shoals and Sons and Daughters stand alone, while Favour the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels are a pseudo-two-parter.
These writers had been trying to sneak long-form storytelling into the franchise for a long time. Writer Ronald D. Moore got into a debate with producer Rick Berman over the open-ended closing scenes of Sins of the Father, the story that kick-started the Klingon story arc that would run over ten seasons of television. Similarly, Moore found himself facing opposition from Gene Roddenberry when he wrote Family about Jean-Luc Picard trying to come to terms with the events of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I and The Best of Both Worlds, Part II.
Pooling resources.
Deep Space Nine spent its first five years inching closer and closer towards a more serialised type of storytelling. Character threads were developed across a number of episodes, while major events were allowed to have significant repercussions. Kira Nerys found herself drawing closer to the Federation in stories like Past Prologue, Progress and In the Hands of the Prophets. Winn Adami was introduced in In the Hands of the Prophets, and her scheming to become Kai would pay off in The Collaborator.
Indeed, Deep Space Nine's interest in long-form storytelling allowed it to draw a more complex picture of twenty-fourth century politics. The failed Obsidian Order attack on the Founders in Improbable Cause and The Die is Cast led directly to the Klingon invasion in The Way of the Warrior, which in turn paved the way for the Cardassians to join the Dominion in In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light. Events tended to resonate across various episodes, with decisions having long-term consequences.
Floating ideas.
Even allowing for these experiments, there was a massive leap in the series' commitment to long-form storytelling between the fifth and sixth seasons. In the late fifth season, there was a clear lag between the stories where events happened and the stories in which the consequences of those events played out. After Cardassia joined the Dominion in By Inferno's Light, episodes like Doctor Bashir, I Presume, A Simple Investigation and Business as Usual largely glossed over it. It was not explored until Ties of Blood and Water, four episodes later.
In contrast, the stories in the early sixth season need to be more strongly integrated with one another. So Rocks and Shoals picks up directly after A Time to Stand, with the crew trapped on a disabled Jem'Hadar ship. Then Sons and Daughters picks up directly after Rocks and Shoals, assuming that the crew have been rescued by the Klingons. This is to say nothing of how carefully the events in Behind the Lines need to tie into the closing two-parter of Favour the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels.
"Don't worry, Dax. You'll make it until at least the end of the season."
This plan was ambitious, but it was also controversial. In the late nineties, syndication was still the primary target market for long-running television shows. Any series wanting to endure (and earn money) after its initial broadcast relied upon syndication deals with local and international networks. There was a lot to be said for syndication as an essential part of the television life cycle, even beyond the obvious financial considerations. In some ways, syndication had helped the original Star Trek find an audience after it was cancelled, keeping the franchise alive.
While Deep Space Nine was on the air, syndication was the most likely long-term future for a television series. Star Trek and other genre shows were available on VHS, but a combination of cost, quality and space made it a model unlikely to offer long-term sustainability. To be fair, home media was on the cusp of two technological revolutions that would revolutionise the way that audiences consumed television shows, but online streaming and digital versatile discs were largely aspiration at this moment in time.
Bajoran Netflix's autoplay feature is a monster.
A Time to Stand aired in September 1997. The first consumer DVD player had only been released six months earlier. Warner Brothers were only just announcing releases of their back catalogue in the format. Sales were sluggish; numbers would only really pick up in 1999, when Titanic became the first DVD to sell more than a million units and The Matrix became the first DVD to sell more than one-point-five million units. The release of Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact in the format was still one year away.
As the six-episode arc aired, there were no public plans to release Deep Space Nine on DVD. The series would not see its first DVD release until February 2003, more than three years after it ended. Even accounting for the trend toward serialisation in late nineties series like The X-Files or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer or Babylon 5, the idea of a highly-serialised syndicated science-fiction adventure series ran counter to the expectations and experience of executives. After all, Star Trek had traditionally been a narrative conservative franchise.
What vial behaviour.
As such, the writing staff on Deep Space Nine faced considerable challenges, not just from the fanbase invested in the franchise mythology. There was considerable resistance from inside the Star Trek family. However, Ira Steven Behr was committed to the idea of long-form storytelling:
Well, we had talked about it for years, the thought of, "If only we could be more serialized." Look, we were drunk on wine and women. No. I felt the end coming. Obviously, we all did. We knew it'd be seven years and out. It was just, "Look, what do we want to do? Whatever it is, we should do it now." Someone asked me on the last day of shooting why I was hanging around so long and I think the line I said was, "I have the rest of my life not to be here. So while I'm here, I'm going to stay until the end." So it was the same thing. "What do we want to do?" One of the things we wanted to do was experiment with serialization and with the kind of space-opera war that spoke to a lot of the mythologies the show had built up. I thought we could do it. I knew we could do it. And then it became horse trading. I don't even remember how many episodes we did, but I know we wanted more. Rick (Berman) and I went back and forth. Nothing terrible. No fights or anything like that. But we horse traded a bit and we came up with whatever it was.
Ira Steven Behr is a phenomenal Star Trek producer, like Michael Piller and Gene L. Coon before him. As with Piller and Coon, a large part of Behr's brilliance lies in his willingness to push Star Trek in new directions; the franchise, and not just the characters, must boldly go.
Nog the battle to the strong.
Deep Space Nine has one of the best television writing staffs in the history of the medium, a fact frequently overlooked owing to its status as a "genre" show. More than that, Deep Space Nine was staffed by an assortment of writers who clearly relished working together and bouncing ideas off one another. Behr clearly led the writers' room, but he also trusted his staff to do their jobs. Deep Space Nine owes almost as much to Moore, Wolfe, Beimler and Echevarria as it does to Behr.
A lot of that was down to the freedom that existed within the writers' room. Part of that was a rebellion against the more conservative tendencies on The Next Generation, which Behr described as "the Connecticut of Star Trek." Moore has talked about how the production team repeatedly tried to strain against the confines of "the Roddenberry Box." Of course, the Star Trek franchise owes a great deal to The Next Generation, but innovation and iconoclasm are an essential part of creative evolution.
There were many casualties on the path to serialisation.
Even following his traumatic departure from the franchise, Ronald D. Moore still spoke fondly of the lack of restrictions imposed upon the writers on Deep Space Nine:
There really weren't any. I mean, we really felt free to go as far as we… Ira certainly would let us go wherever we wanted for a first draft, and then kind of figure out what worked, what didn't, and then fight the battle with Rick if you had to. But I don't really remember there being a stricture about what we could, and could not, do there.
This attitude stands in stark contrast to the mood on Voyager, where Michael Piller had been forced to resign at the end of the second season and where there were very clear creative restrictions imposed upon otherwise adventurous writers like Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.
That sinking feeling.
Unlike Voyager, Deep Space Nine was airing in syndication and so was not subject to the whims of a single broadcaster. The biggest obstacle for Deep Space Nine was frequently the studio and the more conservative leanings of executive producer Rick Berman. Berman had been working on the franchise since the earliest days of The Next Generation, and tended to see himself as the custodian of the franchise. He brought a level of professionalism and stability to the franchise, particularly in those early years when The Next Generation needed to establish itself.
Behr also demonstrated a canny knack for managing upwards. He was a great writer, but one of his strengths as a producer lay in his ability to manage upwards, fighting to ensure that that his staff were afforded the opportunity to do their best work. Although there is a tendency to exaggerate the extent of their disagreements, this could occasionally bring Behr into conflict with Berman. Berman was anxious that Deep Space Nine adhere as closely to the Star Trek template as possible. Behr wanted to break the mould.
Caving under pressure.
The Dominion War was understandably a source of much debate between the two creative figures, with Berman strongly objecting for reasons both philosophical and pragmatic:
The whole idea of the Dominion Wars, the idea that Ira wanted an arc that was going to last a season or perhaps longer, he and I had a lot of disagreement about that. And that was all based purely on the fact that Gene had been very specific to me about not wanting Star Trek to be a show about intergalactic wars, interspecies wars. He didn't want it to be about humans fighting wars against other species.
I felt that the whole arc of these wars was something that could get done in half-dozen episodes. Ira felt differently and he pushed it, and it went longer than I'd hoped it'd go, but it wasn't like a situation of, "Wow, Ira is in his ninth episode and Rick thought he was only going to do four." I mean, I read every story. I read every script. I discussed every story and script with Ira and whoever the writers were. I was aware of it. I was not necessarily happy that it went as long as it did. But these are the kinds of disagreements that people involved with a television show have.
Berman's position is certainly defensible. Indeed, in objecting to the idea of turning Star Trek into a war story, Berman was giving voice to a very vocal contingent of the Star Trek fanbase. Even today, Deep Space Nine is still not entirely accepted by certain sections of that base.
A Jem in the rough.
More than that, there is a legitimate argument to be made this minor creative disagreement enriched the show. Berman and Behr both had good intentions, and were both acting in what they felt to be the best interests of the series. Berman's conservatism was rooted in the fear that the Star Trek franchise might slip from the mainstream and become a niche property. Behr's concern was that the Star Trek franchise might grow stale unless it was willing to try new things. Both arguments make a certain amount of sense.
After all, both Berman and Behr were veterans of television production. There was no massive imbalance in terms of power and experience like there would be when Brannon Braga took control of Voyager. Indeed, it could reasonably be argued that Berman's reluctance and hesitation forced the Deep Space Nine writing staff to justify their storytelling choices in those instances where there was some conflict over the best direction to take.
Serial hero.
The length of the Dominion War was one such point of contention, with Berman and the writing staff arguing over how long the war should last. According to Ronald D. Moore, the writing staff came up with a rather disingenuous solution to this disagreement:
"I remember when we got into the Dominion War, Rick was adamant at first that the war would only take three or four episodes at the most, and we just said, 'Sure!'" Moore said. "We lied.
"We just knew that once we got the ball rolling, that we'd never wrap it up in three or four episodes, so that was just trickery. And then, as the war went on, Rick would weigh in periodically about how heroic the characters are, and 'Why does this one have to be so depressing' and 'This one's too violent …' And we're like, 'It's a f#%kin' war! What do you mean it's too violent?'"
This myth has grown in the telling, occasionally portraying Behr as a quick-witted Thomas Magnum trying to slip past Berman's Higgins. Still, there is no denying that the Dominion War went on much longer than Berman intended.
Hat's off to them.
Indeed, the original promise for the Dominion War arc was three episodes. Then it became four. Then it was five, but Favour the Bold was so large a story that it had to be broken out into two parts. Even then, the writing staff cleverly wrote their way out of the problem presented to them. Although Sisko retook the station and defeated Gul Dukat in Sacrifice of Angels, the production team made it clear that the Dominion War was continuing in the background. It just happened that Deep Space Nine was no longer a battleground of itself.
There were any number of disagreements between Behr and Berman over the direction that the show took in these final two seasons, right down to specific story points. When Terry Farrell declined to return for the final season, there was considerable debate about how best to write Jadzia Dax out of the series. When Nog was wounded in battle during The Siege of AR-558, there was even an extended argument about just how badly the character could be wounded that ended with most ridiculous compromise.
"Don't worry, the writers would never kill you off in such an arbitrary and senseless manner. Certainly not without awkward foreshadowing in the episode directly prior."
Of course, it is very easy to exaggerate these conflicts and turn them into something ridiculous. The truth is that most television shows are the result of creative compromise. Berman has acknowledged that he finds these rumours somewhat frustrating:
I've read a lot about tension between myself and Ira Behr and his writing staff on the show. I've read a lot about Ira pulling the wool over my eyes and Ira kind of tricking me into doing things that I didn't want to do. I find that a little bit hurtful because it's by and large not true. Ira had a very specific vision of how he wanted to run the show. This is after Michael had left. And there were certain things that I agreed with. In fact, a vast majority of what he and his staff did I agreed with. But there were certain things I didn't agree with and, having been one of the two creators of the show and being an executive producer of the show, I felt I had the right to air my feelings to Ira. Unfortunately, it's come out over the years as Ira tricking me into this or getting me to believe he was going to do X and then doing Y. I was never quite that foolish.
In fact, these sorts of rumours are often cited against Berman, as evidence of his alleged responsibility for the cancellation of Star Trek. There is something rather unfair about those criticisms, given the multitude of factors that contributed to the franchise's decline.
"I think we can call this a wash."
At the same time, it has been suggested that Berman's occasionally difficulty keeping the Deep Space Nine writing staff in line with his vision of Star Trek might have contributed in some way to his management style on Voyager and Enterprise. By all accounts, Berman took a much proactive approach to micromanaging Brannon Braga on Voyager than he did towards Ira Steven Behr on Deep Space Nine. When the time came to produce Enterprise, Berman was frequently credited on teleplays.
In interviews after the end of Enterprise, Brannon Braga has talked about his thwarted ambitions for Voyager. The young (and relatively inexperienced) producer had originally envisaged two-parters like Future's End, Part I and Future's End, Part II or Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II as extended arcs in the style of these extended stories on Deep Space Nine. Braga's vision was repeatedly compromised, with his big blockbuster two-parters serving as the boundaries of what would be permitted.
"And Janeway called her year the Year of Hell?"
In The Fifty Year Mission, writer Bryan Fuller suggested that Berman's very conservative attitude towards Voyager was in some way a response to what was happening concurrently on Deep Space Nine:
I was coming into Voyager in Jeri Taylor's last year, and so she was handing the baton over to Brannon, and Brannon was very much a new showrunner. There were things that he really wanted to do and should have been able to do, and which would have made the show better and bolder and bright, but he was not allowed to. Rick Berman more or less told him, "No, you can't do that, because I can't control Ira Behr on Deep Space Nine and I have to control you."
This is a very revealing contrast, one that reveals a lot about the differences between Deep Space Nine and Voyager, even as the two shows were produced side by side.
A rocky road ahead.
History has been kinder to Behr than to Berman. Changes in media consumption have allowed Deep Space Nine to age much better than Voyager. The series holds up to the marathons and binge-watches of the DVD and streaming era, feeling almost like a show balancing between the end of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first century. In fact, when binge-watched, the six-episode arc that opens the sixth season stands as one of the most ambitious and enjoyable Star Trek stories ever told.
In contrast, Voyager often felt dated as it was airing, and feels particularly dated when watched in hindsight. Fourteen years pass between Encounter at Farpoint and Endgame, but there is little appreciable sense of progress of evolution in the way that Star Trek constructs narratives. In contrast, only four months passed between the broadcast of Call to Arms and A Time Stand, but there has clearly been a tangible progression in how Deep Space Nine tells stories. Deep Space Nine aged well, as Behr predicted that it would.
The heat is on.
For his part, Ira Steven Behr has made it clear that has buried any hatchet that existed between himself and the other producer, acknowledging that the pair work together at least as often as they worked in opposition:
If I saw Rick Berman on the street today I would hug him. We ran into each other during the writers' strike and we hugged. Did we agree all the time? No. Could we talk about that? Sure, we could, but what's the point? Given the fact that we were part of this monolithic franchise, DS9 pushed the envelope as far as we could at that time in that situation. Could we have gone farther? Sure. Would the fans have gone with us? Not all of them, clearly. On a day-to-day basis I would say over the course of seven years we had a pretty good working relationship. We disagreed on lots of small and large things, but he went in there with me to fight for Avery Brooks, to shave his head and keep the goat. We walked across the lot together to the executive offices. We were jazzed and we had this disk of how he looked, and we were a team to do that. We got there and they immediately gave up, which was funny after three years. We were all set to go in with guns blazing and they said, "OK." So it was a little anticlimactic, but we were a team at that moment. It's one of the things that profoundly confuses me about the whole Star Trek (experience), is my relationship with Rick Berman, why people care or what that even means, what my relationship was."
This is a very classy and pragmatic perspective on their relationship, and one that speaks to both Behr and Berman as professionals who understand the dynamics of the industry within which they work.
Shipwrecked.
And so the sixth season brings a more heightened and interconnected form of serialisation to Deep Space Nine. The six episodes that open the season consciously and organically lead into one another, with events in each playing across into the next. However, there are stronger and broader continuity ties from these six episodes to stories from earlier in the run and foreshadowing of plot developments yet to come. There is a sense that Deep Space Nine is being bound together in a manner much tighter than it had been.
The Jem'Hadar craft from The Ship is quite useful in A Time to Stand. Nog and Garak discuss Empok Nor while Sisko relates the events of To the Death to Remata'klan in Rocks and Shoals. Martok references the events of In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light in Sons and Daughters, while Odo makes it very clear to the Female Changeling that he has not forgotten the events of Broken Link in Behind the Lines. Even minor continuity threads build across the episodes and beyond, like Damar's alcoholism as first suggested in Behind the Lines.
Kee(van) details.
Still, the production team take great care to ensure that each of the six episodes can stand on their own term. Each episode in the arc represents its own discrete unit of story. Unlike a lot of modern prestige drama, there is a minimal attempt to tell multiple stories at once. Worf barely appears in A Time to Stand, and does not appear at all in Rocks and Shoals, but he then gets to single-handedly carry the primary plot of Sons and Daughters. Similarly, the ruling powers on Terok Nor are entirely absent from Rocks and Shoals, despite appearing in the rest of the arc.
Each episode in the six-part story accomplishes something of itself. A Time to Stand has the raid on the Jem'Hadar ketracel white facility. Rocks and Shoals has the ground war between Sisko and Remata'klan. Sons and Daughters juxtaposes Worf's interactions with Alexander against Kira's relationship to Ziyal. Behind the Lines splits its focus between Dax's first mission in command of the Defiant and Odo's seduction at the hands of the Female Changeling. Favour the Bold pushes everything to the brink, and Sacrifice of Angels pushes it all over the edge.
Pro-protest.
As explained in The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, the writing staff worked hard to ensure that each episode retained a distinct identity even with everything else going on:
The writers though they had a pretty good idea of where they were going after the initial break sessions. "We wanted to do one show about the war, so we all sat down and watched None But the Brave, the 1965 Frank Sinatra movie," Behr recalls. The film, which deals with the interactions of the crew of a downed American plane and a Japanese army patrol during World War II bears "certain similarities", he allows to the team's planned ground war episode, Rocks and Shoals. Beyond that, he says, "we knew that Favour the Bold and what became Sacrifice of Angels were going to be the big broad-canvas shows. And we knew that we wanted to do Behind the Lines, which would be a show about being on an occupied station."
This is a smart approach, and one that helps the storytelling a great deal. In fact, episodes like Rocks and Shoals and Behind the Lines stand out as some of the best storytelling Deep Space Nine has ever done, and can be enjoyed whether as part of a six-episode-marathon or even on their own terms.
Must try Hadar.
This is in some ways an important distinction. This six-episode opening arc would not be the last time that Deep Space Nine attempted a storytelling experiment this bold and audacious. The series would close out its final season with a ten episode arc that brought the Dominion War to an epic conclusion while wrapping up most (if not all) of the dangling story threads. It is undoubtedly a breathtaking piece of television in the context of the late nineties, enough to qualify as a full season of modern prestige television.
However, that closing arc does not work quite as well as this opening arc. There are various reasons for this; it is generally easier to begin a story than to end it, certain pacing issues affect the ten-episode arc, some very basic storybeats are missed in the rush to tidy everything up. However, there is also a sense that the closing arc doesn't balance the demands of individual episode against the needs of the larger arc. Too often in the final arc, it feels like the series is trapped between one extreme and the other.
Nerys-ing the end of her rope.
Many of the episodes in Deep Space Nine's final arc tend to blur into one another. There are exceptions, of course. When It Rains… and Tacking Into the Wind form a stealth two-parter buried in the larger arc. Extreme Measures is very clearly one last Bashir and O'Brien buddy comedy episode that neatly wraps up the lingering Section 31 threads and The Dogs of War tidies away the series' long-standing interest in the politics of the Ferengi Alliance. However, it is very difficult to distinguish the first four episodes of the sprawling arc from one another.
Rocks and Shoals might depend on the events of Call to Arms for its status quo and pick up (almost) directly from the climax of A Time to Stand in terms of plot, but the episode very clearly tells its own story on its own terms. Following a daring raid into Cardassian territory, Sisko and and his crew find themselves trapped on a harsh planet facing a platoon of stranded Jem'Hadar soldiers. What follows is a meditation on the morality of war, and the strength of loyalty and duty in the face of simple reality.
Dirty tactics.
As with Hippocratic Oath and To the Death before it, Rocks and Shoals finds a perverse integrity in the Jem'Hadar. These genetically-engineered drug-addicted fighting machines are presented as the ultimate soldiers, but soldiers who appear to be developing their own strange concepts of honour. These are the soldiers who fight the wars dictated by the Founders and directed by the Vorta. The Jem'Hadar are the soldiers who die face-down in foreign soil in service of those born to higher stations.
The Dominion War is heavily influenced by the Second World War in terms of tone and aesthetic. After all, the Cardassian Union and the Dominion are both clearly analogues for Nazi Germany, with the black and white morality of the Federation's opponents evoking the moral clarity of that defining twentieth century conflict. However, other influences do creep in around the edges. The Vietnam War is an obvious influence on episodes like The Siege of AR-558, for example, even if the script includes some Second World War ballads.
Make war, not love.
There is something of the First World War in the portrayal of the Jem'Hadar in Rocks and Shoals, the idea of masses of lower-class grunts laying down their lives at the direction of those perceived to be their social betters. After all, what is the Dominion's genetic engineering but a rigid encoding of a class structure? It recalls the narrative of the First World War that was popularised by the anti-war historians of the sixties, arguing that it was a war fought by the working class on behalf of the political establishment.
This view holds considerable sway over depictions of the war in popular culture. It is evident in the idea of the British army as "lions led by donkeys", and is treated as black comedy in films like Oh, What a Lovely War! and television series like Blackadder Goes Forth. These have become cultural touchstones for the discussion of the First World War, informing the popular perception of it. There remains some debate over this interpretation of the First World War, with some suggesting that the reality was more complex.
Face of the enemy.
While more members of the working class did die in service of the United Kingdom, the counter-argument suggests that this was simply a matter of harsh mathematics; more working class soldiers dies because the working class made up a greater percentage of the population at large. The matter is a source of controversy in the United Kingdom, with people like Michael Gove objecting to the narrative of the conflict as "a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite."
Of course, the truth might be more complex than the broad stroke narrative that has built up around the conflict. However, there is no denying that one of the great tragedies of the First World War (and many other wars) is the sad reality that those who die in service of their country are rarely the ones to benefit from the war. This tends to get lost in the noble myths that build up around such conflicts. This is also true of African Americans who served in the American armed forces in the Second World War, or during the Vietnam War. It is universal.
'klan warfare.
As such, there is something potent in the portrayal of the Jem'Hadar in Rocks and Shoals. Remata'klan is a compelling and intriguing character, particularly given the pettiness on display around him. When Limara'son suggests that Remata'klan is now the unit leader, Remata'klan corrects him. "I questioned the Vorta's orders," he explains. "He will not forget that. As long as he lives, I will remain Third." It is not the worst thing Keevan does, but it is perhaps the most petty. And, yet, Remata'klan serves with distinction.
Indeed, the closing scenes of the episode almost play out in homage to the iconic closing moments of Goodbyeee, the closing episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. In that iconic episode, the title characters of the series all go "over the top" and wander into no man's land. They know that this means certain death, but they simply have no other option. Goodbyeee is a bleakly nihilistic depiction of the Great War, a condemnation of the folly of war and an acknowledgement of its grotesque farce. Honour and duty mean nothing, abstract concepts used to justify atrocities.
Garak-ed with guilt.
The final scene, as Remata'klan marches his men into battle echoes that depiction of the First World War, although Remata'klan does not even make a token gesture of trying to resist his fate. "Do you really want to give up your life for the order of things?" Sisko challenges. Remata'klan responds simply. "It is not my life to give up, Captain. And it never was." As the lone figure of the Vorta Keevan wanders through the dust cloud kicked up by the ambush, it provides a nice visualisation of the moral fog of wall, while also recalling the mist at the end of Goodbyeee.
It is a powerful and visceral piece of television, one that plays as a response to many of the criticisms of the Dominion War as a concept. Many fans and critics were shocked by the decision to portray an interstellar war on Star Trek, perhaps worried that Deep Space Nine might glorify or trivialise the realities of combat. Rocks and Shoals demonstrates a more nuanced perspective. Sisko's decision to participate in the ambush and massacre of an enemy that refuses to surrender is portrayed as something logical, but also something horrifying. It is not heroic and valourous.
They've got this covered.
A large part of this is down to the performance by veteran Star Trek guest star Phil Morris as Remata'klan. In an interview looking back over his career, Morris acknowledged a fondness for the material that he was given in his various guest shots:
I'm not a Trekker or Trekkie or whatever you call them. I'm just an actor who enjoys great work, and when you play on Star Trek, in any iteration or variation of it, you're gonna be guaranteed to be given amazing material, passionate, high stakes to play. And I got that in every episode I did.
Morris is fantastic in the role of a soldier who is so committed to his duty that all other considerations, including his will and his life, must be treated as secondary.
How far will Sisko go?
Rocks and Shoals benefits from a great guest cast. Morris is wonderful as Remata'klan, but he is gamely assisted by Christopher Shea as Keevan. In some ways, Keevan feels very much like the first Vorta to have been conceived and developed after Jeffrey Combs got to define Weyoun. Technically, Kaitlin Hopkins played Kilana in The Ship a few months after Combs made his debut in To the Death, but there was still a sense that the production team were struggling to find a proper voice for the species.
Eris, Borath, Weyoun and Kilana never really felt like they were cut from the same cloth as one another; no other Vorta would every demonstrate Eris' telepathic abilities from The Jem'Hadar, while no other Vorta would demonstrate as short a temper as Borath in The Search, Part II. In contrast, Keevan feels very much like he belongs to the same species as Weyoun. The two exude the same sort of smarm and disdain for other people, along with a clear affection for the sound of their own voice.
Smiles to go, before he sleeps.
Of course, Weyoun and Keevan are very clearly distinct characters. There are obvious differences between Weyoun and Keevan, in that Keevan seems a lot more self-interested and irreverent about the Dominion than Weyoun. However, there is a sense that the production team have finally figured out what makes the Vorta unique, what gives them a voice distinct from that of the Founders or the Jem'Hadar. Keevan and Weyoun are both recognisably Vorta in the same way that Martok and Gowron are recognisably Klingon.
The loyalty and devotion of the Jem'Hadar is pointedly contrasted with the selfishness demonstrated by Keevan. The Vorta official in charge of the stranded Jem'Hadar platoon is primarily motivated by his own survival. He cannot even be bothered to pantomime the rituals of devotion around which they have built their lives. "Obedience brings victory," Remata'klan prompts. Keevan eschews the "… and victory is life" response, opting for a simple, "Yes. Yes, it does." Keevan is a delightfully slimy character, unworthy of the authority instilled in him.
Ol' blue eyes…
(Indeed, Keevan's disregard for the rituals taken so seriously by the Jem'Hadar provides an effective juxtaposition with Weyoun. It recalls the impatience demonstrated by Weyoun IV when asked to distribute ketracel white while eating dinner in To the Death. However, it also provides a nice contrast with the devotion demonstrated by Weyoun V when hosting the same ritual in A Time to Stand. It seems like, on the sliding scale of Vorta cynicism, Keevan falls closer to the previous version of Weyoun than the current incarnation.)
The dynamic is all the more tragic for the fact that Remata'klan desperately wants to believe in Keevan, even though he knows that he cannot. He is well aware of Keevan's shortcomings, but continually acts as if believing that he will be proven wrong. When Keevan outlines his plan, Remata'klan replies, "I understand." Keevan responds, bluntly, "No, you don't. But that's all right. It's not important that you understand, only that you carry out my instructions precisely." Remata'klan's response of "obedience brings victory…" almost seems like a gesture of goodwill after a snide putdown.
Point of principle.
Christopher Shea's performance is fantastic, building a wonderfully odious (and yet entirely understandable) character with relatively little screen time. Keevan is hardly the most nuanced character to appear on the show, but Shea invests him with enough personality that he feels fully formed. There is a delightful non-chalance to Shea's delivery that contrasts well with Morris' earnestness. There is a sense of cold detachment from his responsibilities that plays very effectively as a counterpoint to his subordinate's unwavering devotion.
This is particularly apparent in his scenes dealing with Sisko. "I'm ordering the Jem'Hadar to attack your base camp in the morning," he bluntly informs Sisko. "But I will provide you with their precise plan of attack. You should be able to kill them all." Bashir reacts with horror. "They're your own men." Keevan doesn't even blink at the implied horror of that statement. "Yes," he states simply, as if responding to a very basic question of fact. It seems almost as though Keevan believes that it goes without saying.
All fired up.
Indeed, Shea makes Keevan so wonderfully sleazy that the audience almost roots for Sisko as he considers just phasering the prisoner of war as he strolls through the carnage that he has wrought. That small character touch was not in the original teleplay. According to writer Ronald D. Moore, it was improvised during filming by actor Avery Brooks. Then again, a lot of the episode had to be improvised, including Dax's injury in the teaser. According to Moore:
Terry has a skin condition that prevents her exposure to direct sunlight. We've worked around it in the past, but the large number of exterior scenes in Rocks and Shoals made it impossible this time. (The days we went on location this year were also some of the very hottest and most miserable days of the year, by the way, and the entire crew was suffering in that airless, baking rock quarry, not to mention the actors forced to work in already stifling makeup and appliances.)
Indeed, when Farrell was on location for the scenes early in the episode, the actor would use a parasol to keep her out of the sunlight; this made her the subject of considerable mockery from the cast and crew working in the scorching heat and burning sunshine. That plot modification is a great example of the sort of tweaks that the production team had to make to their scripts as they were going along, something obviously even more difficult in the context of a longer arc.
Don't leave her hanging.
This sort of improvisational on-the-fly thinking had always been one of the strengths of the Deep Space Nine writing staff, particularly in the middle seasons. Although the Maquis had originally been intended to serve as a launch vehicle for Voyager, the writers on Deep Space Nine used them to tell all manner of interesting stories. When the studio vetoed a third season cliffhanger, The Adversary was written at short notice. When the studio insisted upon involving the Klingons, it led to The Way of the Warrior.
The writers on Deep Space Nine always seemed to have a rough idea of where they wanted to go with the series, but their plan was never mapped out in too much detail. There was always freedom and leeway to work around outside and unplanned factors. However, this approach would create some challenges during the sixth and seventh seasons of Deep Space Nine, particularly when it came to tying it all together and embracing a more serialised model. Indeed, the writers would brush up against these issues particularly when plotting Sons and Daughters and Behind the Lines.
"I think we may have voided the warranty."
Indeed, Rocks and Shoals was retroactively affected by these plotting issues. The episode originally had a very different subplot on Terok Nor, but it had to be adjusted as the station plot in Sons and Daughters began to take shape. As Moore confessed to The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion:
"The station storyline on "Sons and Daughters" changed while they were doing it, which meant that my station-based storyline had to reflect that change… we couldn't keep it straight in our heads and we kept stepping on each other. Had something already happened, or was it happening the following week? It became very difficult to get the whole thing under control."
In some respects, this can be seen. Kira's subplot is told effectively, but it is also very much truncated. Dukat, Weyoun and Damar do not appear. Scenes are short, the transitions abrupt. There is arguably only the vaguest thematic overlap between primary and secondary plot, in contrast to the arc's other stories.
Lifting her spirits.
To be fair to Moore, the station-based subplot in Rocks and Shoals works very well. It certainly works a lot better than the similar plot thread in Sons and Daughters, which largely covers the same ground in a much clumsier manner. Kira's moral crisis and awakening in Rocks and Shoals is executed in a very lean and effective manner, particularly the wonderful contrasting "a day in the life" montages at the start and the end. Unlike the station-based plot in Sons and Daughters, the subplot in Rocks and Shoals manages to convey a lot in a very efficient way.
Rocks and Shoals is a superb addition to the larger Dominion War arc and a wonderful episode in its own right. It is a fantastic demonstration of just what Deep Space Nine can do when it pushes itself, already delivering on the potential of one of the franchise's most ambitious story arcs.
You might be interested in our reviews of the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
A Time to Stand
Rocks and Shoals
Behind the Lines
Favour the Bold
Sacrifice of Angels
You Are Cordially Invited…
Statistical Probabilities
The Magnificent Ferengi
Who Mourns for Morn?
One Little Ship
Honour Among Thieves
Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night
In the Pale Moonlight
Profit and Lace
Time's Orphan
The Sound of Her Voice
Tears of the Prophets
Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, Dominion War, Ira Steven Behr, Rick Berman, rocks and shoals, ronald d. moore, serialisation, star trek, star trek: deep space nine |
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William Wehrs, on January 23, 2017 at 10:36 pm said:
Easily one of my favorite Star Trek episode.It is one of the few Star Trek episodes where the B plot is just as powerful as the A plot. I think the moment where the Vedek hangs herself is one of the most chilling moments in Star Trek. I also really like the juxtaposition of Kira's two mornings, as I always appreciate whenever Star Trek goes into non-verbal storytelling. It is too bad that the next episode has Kira go through the exact same arc of realizing that she is becoming a collaborator, as it undercuts the power of this episode.
"This is also true of African Americans who served in the American armed forces in the Second World War, or during the Vietnam War." Sadly, not just those wars, but the American Civil War and World War I as well. 179,000 African Americans served during the Civil War for their freedom, and though technically freedom was achieved, the eventual process of Reconstruction led to hardship for the African American community in the years to come. Also, in WWI, over 200,000 served with regiments, such as 369th received equal acclaim for its combat performance,as well as being the first American troops to reach the Rhine. What was the reward of the African Americans who served in WWI? Increased racial violence as there were 83 lynchings in 1919 with at least 11 being soldiers from the war. Furthermore, in October 1919, whites in Elaine, Arkansas, massacred hundreds of black people in response to the efforts of sharecroppers to organize themselves.
Darren, on February 7, 2017 at 11:43 am said:
Yep, you're entirely right. It's not as if those experiences are unique to the Second World War or Vietnam. The figure of the "soldier who will never be treated as anything more than meat for a grinder" is sadly universal, but I think it taps into the poignancy of the Jem'Hadar as a concept, the soldiers who die in service of gods indifferent to their suffering.
Ed Azad, on January 25, 2017 at 2:19 am said:
In comparison to Babylon 5, which excels in ways that DS9 faltered, I think Ron Moore did a better job of capturing Army life. Better, it felt like after years and years of teasing, we're finally on "the frontier".
The hardships of location shooting meant that these episodes are rare…and sparkle in ways that controlled shoots in an a/c studio don't.
The shot of Keevan strolling along with his drug briefcase. Very "Lord of War." One of the best shots of the series, no special effects needed.
One more thing I want to point out. Garak with a combadge. This is a great gag. The more he identifies with the Federation, the less effective he becomes.
You keep waiting for Garak to inevitably don a Starfleet uniform like every alien character before him (and after him), but nope.
Darren, on February 7, 2017 at 1:22 pm said:
That's a good point. I do love that small moment where Garak tries to talk his way out of the situation and Keevan (who is bleeding to death at this moment) still makes a point to interrupts him in the smuggest manner possible.
David Sim, on November 2, 2017 at 7:17 pm said:
Ed, Keevan strolls onto the battlefield not with the last supply of Ketracel White but the comm unit they need to signal for help.
Ross Nolan, on January 26, 2017 at 2:15 pm said:
A very interesting review about a very interesting episode. I have to admit the First World War analogy hadn't occurred to me before.
I've seen statistics (from Niall Ferguson and others) that point out the British officer class actually suffered disproportionately heavy casualties compared with the men who served under them so I very much take the 'Lions led by Donkeys' myth with a grain of salt. I think I've pointed out before that of the leaders of the three big British political parties in 1914 – and it is difficult to think of more elite – Asquith had a son killed at the Somme, Bonar Law lost two of his sons and John Redmond (whose son served on the Western Front but survived) lost his brother.
Yep. I suspect there is a broader "truthiness" to that sentiment, for lack of a better word. The statistics might suggest an equivalence, but there's also the fact that the lower classes are MUCH larger. So there's a sentiment that on that scale the proportions don't quite capture the sentiment. I mean, it's reasonable to argue whether that's fair, but I suspect that's a large part of what that sentiment is rooted in.
toddsmitts, on January 26, 2017 at 8:00 pm said:
Interesting that you didn't note that the shooting location for the episode was the same hellish quarry used for "The Ship", which means the captured Jem'Hadar ship ends up, in a way, right back where it started.
Also, in terms of metaphors, I've read that Vedek Yassim's suicide was inspired by the Buddhist monk(s) that committed suicide via self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam war.
Ha! I had never noticed that. A nice bit of symmetry there! And in the second episode of consecutive seasons… well, broadcast-wise, at any rate.
megancyber, on March 24, 2017 at 6:07 am said:
The actress playing Yassim was the daughter of Holocaust victims too. I think.
I think you did make the connection in your review of The Ship Darren. But yeah, it is a nice bit of symmetry – events in DS9 always seem preordained to me.
Darren, on November 8, 2017 at 9:33 am said:
Yep. DS9 has a nice symmetrical structure, even if it developed by accident. The echoing of The Visitor in What You Leave Behind is one such example.
Rocks and Shoals continues a trend of honourable Jem'Hadar that we've seen in episodes like Hippocratic Oath, To the
Death and By Inferno's Light and Remata'Klan may be the best example yet. Even suffering the effects of Ketracel White withdrawal, Remata'Klan remains quite personable and keeps his word in each of his dealings with Sisko, while at the same he retains his loyalties to the Dominion, even in the face of overwhelming defeat.
This is neatly contrasted with Keevan who wouldn't know honour if it shook him by the hand. He's more than willing to surrender as a POW, even if it means trading the lives of his own soldiers just so he can arrange passage off of this world and ensure security for himself. We've always known the Vorta lacked a backbone, but Keevan is the slimiest one we have yet to encounter and gets a well-deserved comeuppance in The Magnificent Ferengi (his second encounter with Nog).
This is the first of Dax's brushes with death this season, with the next in Change of Heart, until finally her luck runs out in Tears of the Prophets. Her injury in Rocks and Shoals was driven more by necessity than artistic licence, but it does foreshadow Terry Farrell's departure from the series everytime I see them.
Even in such a grim episode with multiple deaths and public suicide, it's nice that Rocks and Shoals can make time for a moment of levity when O'Brien cracks everyone up after he starts whining about tearing a pants leg on the long swim to shore after their ship crashed into the sea.
DS9 didn't see a DVD release until 2003 – the series ended in 1999 so that was four years instead of three; isn't it a three-month wait between seasons; you say Favour the Bold pushes everything to the bring, but I think you mean brink Darren.
Thanks David. Those corrections have been made. And Keevan's two appearances are a nice example of how subtly confident DS9 is getting with long-form storytelling and carrying continuity.
CTrent29, on September 4, 2019 at 4:22 am said:
I wish I could say that I admired this episode. It had potential. But I thought its execution seemed off base. It was like watching two completely different episodes shoved into one. The clumsiness of this episode reminded me why I wasn't that impressed with the whole arc regarding the Dominion/Cardassian occupation of Deep Space Nine. It did not quite live up to its potential.
Darren, on September 10, 2019 at 1:46 pm said:
I quite liked the a-plot/b-plot dynamic myself, juxtaposing the reality of life on the front with Kira's own relatively sheltered position on an outpost well behind the lines. Watching the characters struggle and suffer helps sell Kira's frustration at the comforts with which she has surrounded herself.
Joe Y, on September 18, 2019 at 3:17 pm said:
I strongly agree-and think that Rocks and Shoals deserves a spot in the Top Ten DS9 episodes, if not the entire franchise. It's precisely because of the symmetry. It doesn't feel like two stories crammed into one. It feels like two stories that fit perfectly together and complement each other-like Treachery, Faith, and the Great River. Not to mention the superb script by Ronald D. Moore and Phil Morris' engaging performance, and it adds up to a stone cold classic.
RT @ScottMendelson: https://t.co/ENMgMyApkb...around...	7 minutes ago
I'll be joining @venetiaquick and @RadioAido on @Q102FeelGood in a few to talk about Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" on… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…...around...	12 minutes ago


To screen for viruses in the prostate tissue samples, DeRisi and Ganem used the Virochip, which was invented by DeRisi and his colleagues. The Virochip consists of a microarray of some 20,000 characteristic gene sequences — called oligonucleotides — representing a vast array of known viruses. The oligonucleotides are deposited as tiny spots on a small glass chip.
When the researchers isolated and sequenced the genome of the virus, they found that it was a xenotropic virus – one that can only grow in foreign cells other than mouse cells. Thus, they named the virus, Xenotropic MuLV-related virus, or XMRV.
"This finding was a big surprise because most of these endogenous viral genomes have undergone such mutation and deletion that they are incapable of giving rise to viruses any more," said Ganem. "And while some of these viruses had been induced to grow in human cells in culture, the major question is whether such infection could ever happen in nature.
"So, one of the things that is important about our study from a virologic point of view, is that this is the first really solid example of an authentic xenotropic retroviral infection in a human being," said Ganem.
DeRisi pointed out that detailed comparison of samples of the virus between people found that – although all were XMRV – they showed tiny genetic variations. "So, while it is the same virus in each patient, the viruses are different enough to say that they are most likely independently acquired and are not the result of some contamination of the samples," he said.
Nevertheless, said Ganem, an indirect link to cancer cannot be ruled out, since "in cancer research these days, there is a lot of interest in the stroma as the soil in which cancer arises." He added that the chronic inflammation from infection of stromal tissues may play a role in triggering such cancers.
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text:
"Modern movement" in architecture gave rise to "an intellectual time bomb with a very long fuse," says planner Ken Greenberg
A previous post highlights planner Ken Greenberg's survey of the history of urban planning:
Ken Greenberg (2011) talks about early urban planning in Chicago
Click here for previous posts about Ken Greenberg >
In a study, which I have read with interest, entitled Walking Home (2011), Greenberg describes the line of reasoning – a series of conceptual processes, constructed from metaphors, related to machines of modernity, metaphors which have a history dating back to the European Enlightenment – that led to construction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project on Chicago's North Side.
The city as machine was the original, theoretical concept. The machine that turned up in practice, however, in the actual reality of lived experience, was not the machine that had been envisioned. It was more of a machine vividly emerging out of a bad dream, out of a living, breathing nightmare.
A blurb from a book entitled High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing (2018) summarizes the Cabrini-Green story:
Joining the ranks of Evicted, The Warmth of Other Suns, and classic works of literary non-fiction by Alex Kotlowitz and J. Anthony Lukas, High-Risers braids personal narratives, city politics, and national history to tell the timely and epic story of Chicago's Cabrini-Green, America's most iconic public housing project.
Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to twenty-three towers and a population of 20,000 – all of it packed onto just seventy acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource – it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.
In this novelistic and eye-opening narrative, Ben Austen tells the story of America's public housing experiment and the changing fortunes of American cities. It is an account told movingly through the lives of residents who struggled to make a home for their families as powerful forces converged to accelerate the housing complex's demise. Beautifully written, rich in detail, and full of moving portraits, High-Risers is a sweeping exploration of race, class, popular culture, and politics in modern America that brilliantly considers what went wrong in our nation's effort to provide affordable housing to the poor – and what we can learn from those mistakes.
Greenberg notes that in the aftermath of the European Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to deplorable living conditions in industrial cities, a "modern movement" in architecture emerged.
He characterizes the movement (p. 22) as "an intellectual time bomb with a very long fuse" fueled by good intentions – by "a sincere humanist urge" to address the substandard housing, overcrowding, pollution, noise, soot, disease, and other features of industrial cities that emerged after the Industrial Revolution.
Whether "sincere humanist urge" captures the essence of the underlying motivation may be a matter of debate, based on what I've read to date of work by James C. Scott (please see below). It's a matter of nuance; I would need to read Greenberg (2011) more closely, to get a better sense of how he has characterized humanism.
The movement, at any rate, in Greenberg's overview, was based on the premise that the methodical logic that had successfully applied inventive engineering to industry could also be applied to how people lived their lives. This is, in fact, a fundamental point that James C. Scott among others document extensively.
It may be added that, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Mark Mazower notes, people also discussed and imagined new ways in which to govern the world.
With reference to the concept of a modern movement, and related concepts of modernity and modernism, a previous post is entitled:
Modernism, postmodernism, and postmodernity are ways of shaping historical time into epochs
Functional City metaphor
Early modernism gave rise, according to Greenberg, to efforts of "serious and well-intentioned people (primarily architects)" to apply science, engineering, and rational thinking to the design of cities.
In effect, the city would be would be treated like an enormous machine. The early modernists believed the primary roles of a city could be identified, in the same way as the mechanical operations of industrial processes can be identified.
After the roles were identified, they could be simplified, separated, and made to work more efficiently. I would add, as an aside, that the pursuit of efficiency in postindustrial society has a long history.
The Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Modern (known as CIAM; and known in English as the International Congress of Modern Architecture), active from 1928 to 1956, worked to formulate principles related to the city as machine.
In CIAM's proposed scenario, people would be housed in "towers in the park" – high, widely spaced apartment blocks, with lots of green space surrounding individual buildings. Work would be performed in modern factories and offices. Recreation would take place in sports complexes. Cars would move people between zones. Greenbelts would separate the zones.
The CIAM's Athens Charter published in 1934 called for refashioning of cities into independent zones, each separately dedicated to dwelling, work, recreation, and transportation. In the interest of minimizing "friction" and maximizing "efficiency" in CIAM's formula for what it called the Functional City, there was to be no mixing of zones or of functions.
The application of these principles gave rise to large numbers of postwar "urban renewal" projects based on slum clearance and redevelopment.
Confounded by the public street
The CIAM theorists were confounded, according to Greenberg (p. 25), by the "public street, an ancient urban construct and one of the most remarkable multidimensional human inventions." The public street did many things but none perfectly.
"It was exasperating," notes Greenberg, "to those analytic thinkers that the street weaved together so many roles – a means of access and mobility for pedestrians and people using many types of vehicles, a tool for surveying and defining the boundaries of individual properties, a way to deliver basic services and utilities, a place for commercial activities and the provision of public space for social and political life.
"Why not divide these functions up and accommodate each separately and more efficiently? thought the modernists. Viewing the various roles of the traditional street as an unwholesome and confusing muddle, CIAM promoted specialized 'roadways,' intended primarily for vehicles, and separate circulation paths and gathering spaces for pedestrians. The modernist vision untangled the complex web of overlapping activities that would be identified, later in the century, as the very essence of city life."
CIAM gave rise to urban planning as a profession, as I understand from a visit to the Toronto Public Library website. As a blurb regarding Defining urban design: CIAM architects and the formation of a discipline, 1937-69, explains:
"The members of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), such as Josep Lluis Sert, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and their American associates, developed the discipline now called 'urban design,' which has had a significant influence on both university departments and building projects around the world."
Le Corbusier, Broadacre City, and Garden City
Greenberg notes that Le Corbusier, a driving force behind the movement, in a plan published in 1925 proposed to demolish most of the city heart of Paris to be replaced by a field of apartment towers. Streets were to be replaced by a hierarchy of arteries. In 1935 Le Corbusier published a more universal version entitled The Radiant City. Such visions influenced public authorities and private developers in postwar Europe and eventually elsewhere.
In America, architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932 proposed Broadacre City. In what Greenberg (p. 26) terms an "extreme, idealized expression of the newly emerging suburbia," Wright pictured a four-square-mile community spread thinly across the land. Each family "would have a one-acre plot within a sprawling pattern, linked by an extensive network of sinuous sci-fi highways and landing pads for personal helicopters."
A British planning vision, the Garden City movement, emerged in 1898 in response to the unhealthy conditions of British industrial cities. Less bombastic [characterized by pompous or extravagant language], according to Greenberg, in its ambitions than CIAM's or Wright's, the British version proposed self-contained communities in previously undeveloped areas surrounded by greenbelts.
Eugenics in the Garden (2018)
Of related interest is a study entitled: Eugenics in the Garden: Transatlantic Architecture and the Crafting of Modernity (2018).
A blurb reads:
As Latin American elites strove to modernize their cities at the turn of the twentieth century, they eagerly adopted the eugenic theory that improvements to the physical environment would lead to improvements in the human race. Based on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," this strain of eugenics empowered a utopian project that made race, gender, class, and the built environment the critical instruments of modernity and progress.
Through a transnational and interdisciplinary lens, Eugenics in the Garden reveals how eugenics, fueled by a fear of social degeneration in France, spread from the realms of medical science to architecture and urban planning, becoming a critical instrument in the crafting of modernity in the new Latin world. Journeying back and forth between France, Brazil, and Argentina, Fabiola López-Durán uncovers the complicity of physicians and architects on both sides of the Atlantic, who participated in a global strategy of social engineering, legitimized by the authority of science. In doing so, she reveals the ideological trajectory of one of the most celebrated architects of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier, who deployed architecture in what he saw as the perfecting and whitening of man. The first in-depth interrogation of eugenics' influence on the construction of the modern built environment, Eugenics in the Garden convincingly demonstrates that race was the main tool in the geopolitics of space, and that racism was, and remains, an ideology of progress.
Update: The garden metaphor is explored as well in a study entitled: Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (2013). A blurb reads:
This revised edition of Carolyn Merchant's classic Reinventing Eden has been updated with a new foreword and afterword.
Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western Culture. This book traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations and offers a bold new way to think about the earth.
[End of update]
Regent Park, Feb. 1, 2013. Jaan Pill photo
Machine in Garden metaphor
In a series of previous posts, I've addressed the metaphor of the postwar Machine in the Garden aesthetic of factory design, a concept that Steven High among others has explored.
Regent Park Aquatic Centre, Feb. 1, 2013. Jaan Pill photo
Click here for previous posts about the "Machine in the Garden" >
Themes related to the modern movement in architecture are also addressed in previous posts, about the postwar origins and subsequent redevelopment (once severe consequences, stemming from the original development, became evident) of the Regent Park neighbourhood in Toronto.
One of the posts focuses on National Film Board documentaries that have attempted, at times, in a process reminiscent of the Film Board's role (a vital one, in the circumstances of wartime) in creation of propaganda during the Second World War, to justify the line of reasoning that led to construction of the original 1950s version of Regent Park; the post I refer to is entitled:
Framing Regent Park: The National Film Board and the construction of "outcast spaces" in the inner city – 1953 & 1994
With reference to more recent, and more promising, trends, at a CBC Metro Morning radio broadcast, I recently learned about The Regent Park Project, a made-for-YouTube docu-series that follows the lives of students and youth living in the Regent Park neighbourhood:
Click here to listen to an April 17, 2019 Metro Morning clip about The Regent Park Project >
A Jan. 19, 2019 CBC article, which I found informative and evocative, is entitled: "Regent Park kids being squeezed out of their own pool, Toronto councillor says: 70% of pool users coming from other, more affluent neighbourhoods."
An excerpt reads:
At Regent Park Friday, some parents told CBC Toronto of waiting in lineups outside the pool for hours in the middle of the night to register their children for the coveted recreation programs — and even then, they weren't always successful.
Wong-Tam said local people face technological barriers when it comes to securing a spot in the city's popular recreational programs. Because many of the residents come from low-income backgrounds without high-speed internet, they have trouble competing with applicants from more affluent backgrounds.
Spaces in the city's popular, low-cost programs are offered online and by phone, which means parents with the fastest connectivity have an advantage, some Regent Park parents say.
Click here for previous posts about Regent Park >
Many overviews of the history of Regent Park are available including a recent one entitled: Regent Park Redux: Reinventing Public Housing in Canada (2017); a blurb for the book reads:
Regent Park Redux evaluates one of the biggest experiments in public housing redevelopment from the tenant perspective. Built in the 1940s, Toronto's Regent Park has experienced common large-scale public housing problems. Instead of simply tearing down old buildings and scattering inhabitants, the city's housing authority came up with a plan for radical transformation.
In partnership with a private developer, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation organized a twenty-year, billion-dollar makeover. The reconstituted neighbourhood, one of the most diverse in the world, will offer a new mix of amenities and social services intended to "reknit the urban fabric."
Regent Park Redux, based on a ten-year study of 52 households as they moved through stages of displacement and resettlement, examines the dreams and hopes residents have for their community and their future. Urban planners and designers across the world, in cities facing some of the same challenges as Toronto, will want to pay attention to this story.
Map showing the planned phases of redevelopment of Regent Park, image courtesy of Toronto Community Housing. This image has been downloaded from a Sept. 12, 2012 Urban Toronto article, entitled: "TCHC and Daniels Unveil Plans for Phase Three of the Regent Park Revitalization."
The above-noted discussions bring to mind the Vietnam War, which had its beginnings in the idealism of the administration of the American President, John F. Kennedy, who called upon young Americans to "serve their country." In the end, good intentions and bright, well-meaning individuals in high positions orchestrated what turned out to be a disaster.
Such themes are highlighted at a post entitled:
What is characterized as decent, honourable, and loyal depends upon the context in which the terms are used
Comments from Jane Jacobs
I have discussed observations from James S. Scott at a previous post entitled:
History and Social Theory (2005) by Peter Burke and Two Cheers for Anarchism (2012) by James C. Scott warrant a close read
Le Corbusier branded himself, and was branded by others, as an expert in modernist land-use decision making.
Jane Jacobs, among other observers, eventually underlined that the metaphors that Le Corbusier and his planning contemporaries chose, starting in the 1920s, in order to guide and justify their modernist urban planning initiatives, were misleading and inept.
Based on my reading of studies related to the history of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia in the 1930s and 1940s, I have the sense that Le Corbusier's aesthetic vision had affinities with totalitarian art. This is a point that James C. Scott also brings attention to. A related topic, which I find of much interest, concerns how best to define totalitarianism.
James C. Scott (1998) discusses Le Corbusier's urban planning metaphors
The following passage is from Chapter 4 – "The High Modernist City: An Experiment and a Critique," in Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998) (pp. 106-107).
The passage concerns (in the words of Scott, p. 103) "the work and thought of the Swiss-born French essayist, painter, architect and planner Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who is better known by his professional name, Le Corbusier," whom Scott characterizes as "the embodiment of high-modernist urban design."
In his introductory remarks, Scott adds, with regard to Le Corbusier: "Active roughly between 1920 and 1960, he was less an architect than a visionary planner of planetary ambitions. The· great majority of his gargantuan schemes were never built; they typically required a political resolve and financial wherewithal that few political authorities could muster."
In his introductory remarks, Scott adds that Le Corbusier's "legacy is most apparent in the logic of his unbuilt megaprojects." He adds:
His early politics was a bizarre combination of Sorel's revolutionary syndicalism and Saint-Simon's utopian modernism, and he designed both in Soviet Russia (1928-36) [3] and in Vichy for Marshal Philippe Petain. The key manifesto of modern urban planning, the Athens charter of the Congres lnternationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), faithfully reflected his doctrines.
The author further adds (p. 104):
Le Corbusier embraced the huge, machine-age, hierarchical, centralized city with a vengeance. If one were looking for a caricature a Colonel Blimp, as it were, of modernist urbanism – one could hardly do better than to invent Le Corbusier. His views were extreme but influential, and they were representative in the sense that they celebrated the logic implicit in high modernism. In his daring, his brilliance, and his consistency, Le Corbusier casts the high-modernist faith in sharp relief. [4]
Quote from pp. 106-107 in Seeing Like a State (1998):
The passage, that I have chosen to focus upon, reads:
Le Corbusier had no patience for the physical environment that centuries of urban living had created. He heaped scorn on the tangle, darkness, and disorder, the crowded and pestilential conditions, of Paris and other European cities at the turn of the century. Part of his scorn was, as we shall see, on functional and scientific grounds; a city that was to become efficient and healthful would indeed have had to demolish much of what it had inherited. But another source of his scorn was aesthetic. He was visually offended by disarray and confusion. And the disorder he wished to correct was not so much a disorder at ground level but a disorder that was a function of distance, a bird's eye view. [7] His mixed motives are nicely captured in his judgment on small rural properties as seen from the air (figure 17). "From airplanes, a look down on infinitely subdivided, incongruously shaped plots of land. The more modern machinery develops, the more land is chopped up into tiny holdings that render the miraculous promise of machinery useless. The result is waste: inefficient, individual scrabbling." [8] The purely formal order was at least as important as the accommodation with the machine age. "Architecture," he insisted, "is the art above all others which achieves a state of platonic grandeur, mathematical order, speculation, the perception of harmony that lies in emotional relationships." [9]
Formal, geometric simplicity and functional efficiency were not two distinct goals to be balanced; on the contrary, formal order was a precondition of efficiency. Le Corbusier set himself the task of inventing the ideal industrial city, in which the "general truths" behind the machine age would be expressed with graphic simplicity. The rigor and unity of this ideal city required that it make as few concessions as possible to the history of existing cities. "We must refuse to afford even the slightest concession to what is: to the mess we are in now," he wrote. "There is no solution to be found there." Instead, his new city would preferably rise on a cleared site as a single, integrated urban composition. Le Corbusier's new urban order was to be a lyrical marriage between Cartesian pure forms and the implacable requirements of the machine. In characteristically bombastic terms, he declared, "We claim, in the name of the steamship, the airplane, and the automobile, the right to health, logic, daring, harmony, perfection." [10] Unlike the existing city of Paris, which to him resembled a "porcupine" and "vision of Dante's Inferno," his city would be an "organized, serene, forceful, airy, ordered entity."[11]
A blurb for Seeing Like a State (1998) reads:
Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural modernization in the Tropics – the 20th century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?
I came across James C. Scott's work some years ago. Some people who espouse a libertarian ideology appear to be fond of his work. I am fond of his work but I am not a libertarian.
Ken Greenberg's metaphor of "an intellectual time bomb with a long fuse" has prompted me to write the current post.
One tentative conclusion, based on what I've learned writing this post, is that metaphors can take on a life of their own, and can readily exert a strong hold on what we see, and what we do.
Metaphors can, in some cases, take on a life of their own, specifically under conditions where the metaphors are aligned with evidence.
Metaphors can, as well, take on a life of their own, specifically even under conditions where they are untethered from evidence.
I see that phenomenon at play in the "intellectual time bomb" metaphor, that Ken Greenberg refers to.
I also see that phenomenon at play in the mental processes that are evident, to historians who have studied archival and other evidence, with regard to the Vietnam War.
Another tentative conclusion, based on what I've learned writing this post, is that good intentions can, at times, lead to bad results.
A corollary is that one must proceed with wisdom before proceeding with some big project, aimed at offering aid and assistance, to address a given situation.
There is much that we can do, by way of being helpful toward our fellow human beings, but we must show wisdom, with regard to how can most productively proceed, in the fulfillment of such a task.
As well, not all help is actually helpful.
For example, if we don't ask a person whether or not they see themselves as requiring help, then what we offer is not help, but may in fact be an imposition. As well, if a person being helped has no input in decision making, related to the help, then something other than help is at play.
Thus a key point is: If we seek to provide help, it's a great idea to be clear what help means, from the perspective of the person receiving the help, and from the person who offers it. Without such clarity, nobody gains, and everybody loses.
I like to focus on what works. Among things that are helpful, in my view, is a level of income equality, of a kind that is found in a country such as Norway. Better to have people living with a decent income, than for planners to work endlessly at devising ways to address extremes in income inequality. Urban planning keeps planners employed but does not, as a rule, do much to address underlying issues related to poverty.
A May 8, 2019 CityLab article, which helps to put topics at this post into a context, in terms of people's lived experiences, is entitled: "How Does Toxic Stress Affect Low-Income and Black Children?: Traumatic childhood experiences can harm children's ability to learn reading, writing, and math, according to a new report."
He was channeling a bit of conventional wisdom, that extreme stress has lasting effects on health and well-being. A new report affirms that connection, finding that threatening childhood experiences can change the way children grasp math and learn the alphabet, and can even affect their ability to read a simple story. Those experiences can also permanently alter children's physiology, creating "toxic stress."
A more recent study by Ken Greenberg is entitled: Toronto Reborn: Design Successes and Challenges (2009). A blurb reads:
An incisive view of Toronto's development over the last fifty years. In Toronto Reborn, Ken Greenberg describes how the contours of a new Toronto can be seen. Focusing on the period from 1970 to the present, the book looks at how the work and decisions of citizens, NGOs, businesses, and governments have all combined to refashion Toronto. Individually and collectively, their actions – renovating buildings and neighbourhoods, building startling new structures and urban spaces, revitalizing old cultural institutions and creating new ones, and sponsoring new festivals and events – have transformed the old postwar city, changing it into an exciting modern one. Toronto, grafting itself onto old foundations, is experiencing a kind of rebirth – arising vertically above its old self.
A May 3, 2019 JAMA Network article is entitled: "Health Concerns in Urban Slums: A Glimpse of Things to Come?"
The Conclusions read:
Are slum dwellers entitled to the same basic human rights that most people take for granted? The needs of urban poor populations are growing exponentially, and governments must act to meet those needs. Despite the limited evidence, providing suitable housing, water, sanitation, and basic health care appear paramount. But the reality is that most low- and middle-income countries are not prepared or do not have the resources to provide this basic human right for the poorest segments of their societies. What, then, is the minimum that should be provided to ensure infant survival, proper growth and development of children, and quality of life for families? Should the focus be on the first year of life, children younger than 5 years, or all age categories? Is annual vaccination possible? Is universal health care achievable? What are low- and middle-income countries prepared to invest to make this a reality? More questions remain unanswered than answered. Virtually every UN Sustainable Development Goal has not been met in urban slums around the globe. Clearly, urban slum health must become a global health priority in the 21st century to avoid a humanitarian crisis.
Gentrification and urban beauty
A May 15, 2019 CityLab article is entitled: "The Beauty Premium: How Urban Beauty Affects Cities' Economic Growth: A study finds that the more beautiful a city is, the more successful it is at attracting jobs and new residents, including highly educated and affluent ones."
Language related to climate crisis
Gentrification when viewed as a global phenomenon can be characterized as development at the expense of the planet.
A May 17, 2019 Guardian article is entitled: Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment: From now, house style guide recommends terms such as 'climate crisis' and 'global heating'".
The scale of the climate and wildlife crises has been laid bare by two landmark reports from the world's scientists. In October, they said carbon emissions must halve by 2030 to avoid even greater risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. In May, global scientists said human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating annihilation of wildlife and destruction of the ecosystems that support all life on Earth.
Other terms that have been updated, including the use of "wildlife" rather than "biodiversity", "fish populations" instead of "fish stocks" and "climate science denier" rather than "climate sceptic". In September, the BBC accepted it gets coverage of climate change "wrong too often" and told staff: "You do not need a 'denier' to balance the debate."
A May 22, 2019 Frisc article is entitled: "Housing Arguments Over SB 50 Distort My Upzoning Study. Here's How to Get Zoning Changes Right: Whether more buildings and greater density make units more affordable is a good question, but results from Chicago are being misinterpreted. Turns out that the nuances and details matter."
Committee of Adjustment and Toronto Local Appeal Body
History of Long Branch
Small Arms Society
Coffee shop at the southeast corner of Bloor and Bathurst is closed, courtesy of pandemic
The R.M. Ballantyne Ltd. textile plant was built by a thread company, which ran into financial difficulties, and was first occupied by a motor company which built a bus, that startled the horses
Potentially ominous news: "I'm not at liberty to disclose them because they're covered under a confidentiality agreement, but I can say that council, we're looking at this," Stratford mayor said
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Local Planning Appeal Tribunal refuses permission to allow >6 storeys on 2915-2917... Update regarding MCHS grad Peter Parsons (repeat of previous post, deleted during...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


City sights or seaside charm? Get the best of both with Premier Inn Hotel Basildon Rayleigh, right between buzzing Basildon and Southend-on-Sea. And if you're here to work, we're close to key business destinations like the Lawn conference centre, too.
Escape the office and stroll along Southend seafront. Get sporty - play a round at Hanover golf club or go for gold at Basildon Sporting Village. Catch a show, a film or a game of laser tag at Rayleigh Megazone. After a busy day, unwind in our tasty restaurant, spacious rooms and extra-comfy beds.


text:
Q: Sequence of iid random variables $(X_n)$ is a sequence of i.i.d real valued random variables, where the distribution of $X_n$ is assumed to be the exponential distribution with mean 1.
We then define $Z_n=X_{2n}X_{2n+1}$.
Now I have to show, that $(Z_n)$ is a sequence of i.i.d random variables.
I think it is easy to see, that they are independent, but what are the argument that they are identically distributed?

A: identically distributed means that the distribution of $Z_n$ does not depend on $n$. In this, the distribution of $Z_n$ can be directly derived from the distribution of $X_{2n}$ and $X_{2n+1}$.
The distribution of $X_{2n}$ and $X_{2n+1}$ do not depend on $n$ since $X$ is iid, therefore the result follows.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Thalerastria is a genus of moths of the family Noctuidae. The genus was described by Staudinger in 1898.

Taxonomy
Butterflies and Moths of the World gives this name as a synonym of Eulocastra Butler, 1886.

Species
Thalerastria alfierii Wiltshire, 1948 Arabia
Thalerastria diaphora (Staudinger, 1878) Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Armenia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, southern European Russia, Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, India
Thalerastria hampsoni (Hacker, 2016) Somalia
Thalerastria lehmanni Hoppe & Fibiger, 2009 Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Spain
Thalerastria meyi (Hacker, 2016) South Africa
Thalerastria ochrographa (Hacker & Saldaitis, 2016) Oman
Thalerastria phaeoxantha (Hacker, 2016) Ethiopia, Kenya
Thalerastria rex Wiltshire, 1948 Arabia
Thalerastria saldaitis (Hacker, 2016) Sokotra
Thalerastria tenuifascia (Hacker, 2016) Kenya

References

Acontiinae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Motivation is needed at work, at school, or at home. Some individuals lack motivation, while others are over-achievers who experience out-of-control motivation.
This can lead to perfectionist thinking where if things are not perfect, individuals may believe that they are not trying hard enough. While there is no set-point for motivation, there is a range that most people seem to fall into.
If you find yourself out of that range, come and talk to me. Some of the tools I find helpful are organization and time management. By using these tools, you can help you get enough accomplished so that you feel productive while permitting some time for self-care.


text:
January 16, 2018 January 21, 2018 Shawn Clinton
Martin Luther King Jr: His Legacy
Today, we stop to remember and honor one of the most well known and respected civil rights leader in American history, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. As we know, MLK was the driving force in the push for civil rights for people of color. This large push for equal rights ultimately lead to the passing of several civil rights acts in the 1960s and ended state mandated segregation in the United States. What really made him stand out was his commitment to non-violence during his marches. So, this is going to be a basic overview of his life and how he became the leader he was.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on this day January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Ga. In his early years, he attended Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta where his father Martin Luther King Sr. was a pastor at. He experienced racial discrimination early as a child. When he was about 6 years old he befriended a young white boy, but unfortunately when he started school, his friend's father didn't want him hang out Martin anymore. He also suffered from depression and even at one point, he attempted suicide by jumping out of a 2 story building, thankfully he survived. Later on, he went on to attend college at Boston university to get his PhD. He graduated on June 5th, 1955. In 1953 he married Coretta Scott and had 3 children. In 1954 he became a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Al.
In 1955, after 2 women Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin refused to give up their bus seats to white people, MLK lead a boycott against public Montgomery buses, and lasted for about 385 days. This soon started a chain reaction that lead to the formation of civil rights groups and marches. On August 28th, 1963 MLK lead a large march in Washington D.C. along with about 250,000 other people. This is where he gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. This led to the passing of the civil rights act of 1964. For the years coming after that, life for people of color in the US got significantly better.
On March 28th, 1968, he went to Memphis, Tn to support black sanitary public works employees on strike for better treatment and higher wages. Then, on April 3rd, 1968 6:01 pm, a man named James Earl Ray fatally shot Dr. King and later died at 7:05 pm at St. Joseph's Hospital. The assassination sparked several riots throughout the country. Ray was captured two months later and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Reverend Martin Luther King, still remains today one of the most influential people in America. One of the big things that I really loved about him was, not only his courage to stand up to oppression, but also his strong love for God. I think his relationship with Jesus is one of the key factors that influenced him to become an activist. I hope and pray that he continues to be a big influence on people like was then and is today.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/martin-luther-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-august-28-1963.php
Previous 2nd amendment rights and democrats false interpretation of it.
Next Christianity in America
R.S. HELMS says:
Great Blog, Reblogged on Bob's Opinion.


text:
When Pleasure Left The Island
Kory and Adam take a nostalgic look back at the heyday, and demise of Pleasure Island! Featuring a look back at Kory's 2010 Attractions Magazine article, and insight from former Executive VP of Operations for the Walt Disney World Resort, Lee Cockerell.
BONUS: Notable Arrests at Walt Disney World + more with Lee Cockerell
For all of the other things (support, merch, bios, past episodes) head to UnpackedPodcast.com Voicemail: (213) 935-0513 Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Unpacked is a production of No Midnight Media.
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Presenting: Stereotypes - Straight Talk from Queer Voices
Unpacked will return! In the meantime check out episode one of Christopher Beale's new podcast Stereotypes - Straight Talk from Queer Voices. Listen and subscribe! - Everyone's coming out is different. Some folks can't come out, and for many — when we finally do — we discover that there are more questions on the other side. Meet Rae, a gender non-binary person who has learned to treat coming out as a process the length of a lifetime. Plus, Chris shares how he got caught in the act and forced out of the closet in high school. - You can contact Christopher Beale on Twitter, and connect with the show at StereotypesPodcast.org.