Crystal Ball

When I dug back into this blog, I found a box buried under a pile of clothes marked Drafts. It's stuffed with old posts that I started but never finished.

I must confess to being surprised at the vast number of them, and the quality of what I did. I'm not sure why I never finished them, but I am impressed by the sheer laziness of not doing so.

My slacking skills are without peer.

This one caught my eye this morning. I'm unsure why I never published it, but I think I did pretty good. This draft is from 11/16/2017. It doesn't have a great ending, but I'm just publishing it as is, without any polish.

Enjoy.

~Easy                                                          

Crystal Ball

So here's what I see in our immediate future:

**The hard won rights of LGBT people will be rolled back. 
Folks that are married now probably won't have those marriages declared void, but it will probably stop being the law of the land. Oh, the big companies like Disney won't change anything, but the little baker up the street won't have to bake that cake for the homos anymore if he doesn't want to, thus Making America Great Again!

**Those pesky Job Killing Regulations will be removed
Drill, baby drill! Fuck that Spectacled Brown Titmouse and his habitat. We need to drill for oil and build new pipelines. We don't need OSHA, the FDA. the EPA, or any of those acronyms. All they do is get in the way of Making America Great Again.

**We'll stop paying and ask NATO to split the tab
Trump wants to either pull out of NATO, or make them pick up our tab. I could do an entire post on how ridiculous and stupid this is, but the bottom line is that we keep our troops in these countries not to protect them, but to protect us. If war breaks out in Europe, we're already there. Deploying an army is not something you do at the drop of a hat. The money we spend maintaining these bases is for our own security. Back when America Was Great, we didn't have these bases but they sure would have come in handy a couple of times, don't ya think?

**The New Deal
Trump believes that the USA has been getting the short end of the stick because no one but him knows how to negotiate a deal. So we can look forward to our president trying to re-open deals and agreements that are already in place. Does anyone think that other countries will make agreements with us if the know that every 4 or 8 years a new POTUS will want to add his mark so he can Make America Great Again?

**Tinfoil Hats

A large contingent of Trump's message was to the tinfoil hat crowd. You know, the ones who take pictures of contrails, think that Obama is a Muslim. or that Hillary killed a bunch of people in Benghazi? The ones who think that the Illuminati has infiltrated the bowling league, and they need to take an AR-15 over their shoulder when they go to Wal-Mart to buy the latest issue of the National Enquirer? Yeah, they're going to feel validated. Not because Trump said or did anything to encourage him, but rather because he didn't do anything to discourage them. This is how we Make America Great Again

Discovery

If you know me at all, then you know that I'm really fired up about something these days. Ive been trying to take a "wait and see" approach, but recent events have demonstrated that even though I had low expectations, things are going to be worse than I had thought.

Of course, I am talking about the new Star Trek series from CBS.

I am what one might call a Star Trek nerd. I love the show. I've seen every episode of TOS enough times that I can almost recite them verbatim.

I watched Star Trek The Animated Series every Saturday morning when it came on.

When Star Trek The Next Generation came on I made sure I had the VCR set to record it faithfully. It was a disappointment at first, but I could live with it. And it developed into a damn fine show.

So when they announced the spin off Star Trek Deep Space 9 I had a great deal of faith in the series. It did not disappoint. DS9 is my favorite of the Trek incarnations.

Then came Star Trek Voyager. This one I had high hopes for, but it became too difficult to watch. I stopped in the middle of the 1st season because it was awful. A few years ago I made myself watch the entire series, and it actually got pretty good around the 3rd season.

The last one that aired was Enterprise. This was a prequel series, going back to humanity's first steps into interstellar exploration. I really enjoyed this one for the most part. However, there was too much emphasis on some storylines that took up entire season arcs and weren't executed very well. I did have one beef with the show as relates to canon. They gave the Andorians ears, and renamed their homeworld Andoria. I was irritated every time I saw an Andorian.

And of course, we had several movies involving the original cast, and a couple of TNG movies. One of these is germain to my problem. I'll get back to this in a minute.

There are also the new Star Trek Movies from JJ Abrams. They are TINO (Trek In Name Only), and we will not speak of them any more than is necessary Don't get me wrong. They were loads of fun, but they completely missed the point of Star Trek.

Now we have this new drivel from CBS. The name of the series is Discovery, and it features a female as the main character.  This is actually pretty cool.

It's supposed to be set in the years between Enterprise and TOS (The Original Series). This is also cool.

The producers have been saying all along that they will be adhering to established canon. This would be very cool if it were true. However, it's not, and that is extremely uncool.

Here's one reason why.

Contrary to what most folks think, this symbol on the right is not the Starfleet insignia. At least, it wasn't originally.

This symbol is the patch of the USS Enterprise. The star inside it signifies that the wearer is part of the command and control structure.

When they released the first Star Trek movie, somehow the emblem for the Enterprise was being worn by everyone. It was explained that because the Enterprise had been so successful in her 5 year mission, Starfleet adopted their insignia for all.

I think that's kind of weak, but since there is historical precedent for it, I'll accept it. After all, it's definitely the coolest one.

There are numerous examples of different patches for different ships.

Below is a still photo from the TOS episode The Doomday Machine of Matt Decker, the commander of the USS Constellation. Can you see the emblem on his chest?

There's also this one of Ronald Tracy from the episode The Omega Glory. He's the captain of the USS Exeter.

Also this one on the dead crew of the USS Defiant in the episode The Tholian Web. It's hard to make out, so I put one next to it you can see

4 different starships, each with a unique insignia.

If there was any badge that could have been considered a generic Starfleet one it would have been the starburst seen on these folks who were starbase personnel.

(Please note the diversity there. A black man and a latino man both holding higher ranks than Kirk. The woman is the chief prosecutor for the JAG. This was in the late '60's)

So what's the point here?

Well, CBS and the producers of Discovery claim they will be adhering to canon.

And yet...

This is Michael Burnham, the XO of the USS Shenzhou. Apparently she'll be known as "Number 1" and while we know she's the XO, we don't know her rank. Since the show hasn't aired yet, I don't know whether she's on the USS Shenzhou or another ship.

I do know that she's not on the Enterprise.

And yet that is clearly the insignia of the Enterprise on her left breast.

I await an explanation.

~Easy

Ich Werde Versuchen, Diese Wieder

So...

A few things have changed since my last post. Monumental changes. You could say that it's proof positive that I am a slacker when it comes to blogging. In my defense, I have been kind of busy. So let me list the changes real quick

• I became a published author
• I quit my job with the City
• I moved to Germany
• I opened up a Biergarten

I think that pretty well sums it up.

I'll expand on this later, but for now I'm taking up the challenge thrown down by my friend Kristine over at Random & Odd who started this whole Blog Revival thing. I had to get something on the screen, even if it's lame and vague.

My next post will be marginally more interesting.

Maybe.

~Easy