After years of encouragement, I finally bit the bullet...

[conuly]

And started (belatedly) watching Babylon 5.

*taps foot*

People, you all said it was good. And it is. But I never would've started watching it if I'd realized how paranoid it'd make me! I mean, I was cynical before, but after watching seasons one and two in a little under a week, I'm starting to think that the government is full of massive conspiracies, that the world is full of small, petty-minded people willing to sell us out for a tiny bit of personal profit, that the forces of darkness are infecting everyone alive and I need to HIDEHIDEHIDE.

Well. I mean, I thought that before, but now it's worse. It does end well, right?

Edit: A couple of questions. Are we really expected to believe that any organization would unironically call itself the Ministry of Peace? I mean, it hasn't been that long, only a few hundred years. So either everyone has forgotten about 1984, in which case the odds of an organization actually calling itself the Ministry of Peace, with the precise nickname "Minipax" are slim, or people haven't forgotten 1984, in which case the odds are even slimmer.

I mean, I can believe that people would unintentionally echo Chamberlain and not realize how thoughtless the words are, but I find it hard to believe that they'd accidentally stumble upon the words from one of the most influential books of only a couple of hundred years earlier.

Kinda like every sci-fi series eventually has an episode (or sometimes several unrelated episodes) where one jingoistic species has people talking about Final Solution. Guys! We get the Holocaust references even without the key phrases. We really don't need to have it hammered into our skulls!

Comments

[aberrantangels]

Unfortunately, I don't exactly remember how it ends...

In fire. </kosh>

[conuly]

Some say the world will end in fire
Others say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I side with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Cold Missouri Waters

(Words & music James Keelaghan)

My name is Dodge, but then you know that
It's written on the chart there at the foot end of the bed
They think I'm blind, I can't read it
I've read it every word, and every word it says is death
So, Confession - is that the reason that you came
Get it off my chest before I check out of the game
Since you mention it, well there's thirteen things I'll name
Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters

August 'Forty-Nine, north Montana
The hottest day on record, the forest tinder dry
Lightning strikes in the mountains
I was crew chief at the jump base, I prepared the boys to fly
Pick the drop zone, C-47 comes in low
Feel the tap upon your leg that tells you go
See the circle of the fire down below
Fifteen of us dropped above the cold Missouri waters

Gauged the fire, I'd seen bigger
So I ordered them to sidehill and we'd fight it from below
We'd have our backs to the river
We'd have it licked by morning even if we took it slow
But the fire crowned, jumped the valley just ahead
There was no way down, headed for the ridge instead
Too big to fight it, we'd have to fight that slope instead
Flames one step behind above the cold Missouri waters

Sky had turned red, smoke was boiling
Two hundred yards to safety, death was fifty yards behind
I don't know why I just thought it
I struck a match to waist high grass running out of time
Tried to tell them, Step into this fire I set
We can't make it, this is the only chance you'll get
But they cursed me, ran for the rocks above instead
I lay face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters

And when I rose, like the phoenix
In that world reduced to ashes there were none but two survived
I stayed that night and one day after
Carried bodies to the river, wonder how I stayed alive
Thirteen stations of the cross to mark to their fall
I've had my say, I'll confess to nothing more
I'll join them now, because they left me long before
Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters
Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri shore

Oh, you think you can outquote *me*?

[conuly]

Gaily bedight
A gallant knight
In sunshine and in shadow
Had journeyed long
Singing a song
In search of Eldorado

But he grew old
This knight so bold
And over his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Re: Oh, you think you can outquote *me*?

[idonotlikepeas]

Ah, tangents.


It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,—
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.