In praise of screwing up...

Oh, good quote from Cary Tennis of Salon

"You must be willing to screw up a little. Screwing up can be the smartest thing you ever did. It's OK to screw up. It's OK to embarrass yourself. Consider: This is your life and your soul we're talking about! This is not some school play! It would be a far greater sin for you to drift along in a haze of moderation than to start a fire or two. Go fuck some things up."

Booby prize aka Enterprise sucks.

Started to watch an episode of Enterprise this morning, (which has become known as "Booby Prize" in our household). I think we managed to watch all of fifteen minutes, and I'm not sure we should even waste time and energy on the rest, this one's a dog. T'Pol has an illness that's obviously meant to be an AIDS metaphor (life-threatening, contracted during the stigmatized practice of mindmelding). Just to make it clear that she's not queer, excuse me, not a mindmelder, she contracted the disease against her will. So, she's an innocent victim. Excuse me while I make gagging sounds.

In contrast, there's a lighter storyline dealing with Doctor Phlox meeting up with one of his wives. Tee-hee-hee! Look! He has three wives! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!

Speaking as someone who knows people with polyamorous relationships, I find it funny that this is clearly considered so far removed from reality that it becomes material for comic relief while being gay can't be talked about at all.

Interestingly, Phlox and his second wife do remind me of a lot of polyamorous people I know. Very friendly, very intent on the doings of everyone in their rather large intimate circle, eerily reasonable about the fact that they're having sexual relations with a small tribe, and wanting a great deal of discussion to make sure everyone participating is happy about it. Maybe all polyamorous people are really Denobians?

But seriously, is Star Trek ever going to grow up and have a normal gay character? I imagine that some day the Enterprise lands on a planet where a certain percentage of the population engages in same sex relations. "Cap'n, we've never seen an alien species do this before, it's not in any of the ship's databanks. Think the Vulcans would have anything"?