The West Wing - twice

 

The West Wing originally aired from 1999 to 2006. It was the best and brightest example of liberal mollification media since M*A*S*H went off the air in 1983. Smart writing and believable Executive Branch scenarios kept the show on for seven seasons.

I recently binged the whole series and was shocked to fine it more than mildly upsetting. The first time around we got the politics week to week or VCR'd over a month or so. But binging back-to-back-back puts a viewer right smack in the midst of the incredible dysfunction that is the two-party system. 

Evil bastards on both sides of the aisle cheat, weasel and steal with zero regard for their constituents. I mean, of course, in the show not actual events in Washington. The good guy president Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) is only the good guy if you're a liberal. John Goodman does a great conservative president for several episodes in season four. Take your pick.

What is unsettling is watching the fictional partisan dog-fighting of the show in this time of trump. Yet, it is also eerily calming to realize back twenty years ago, the inane political fractures in our government were already in place. About the only difference between fiction then and reality now is there are far fewer politicians who are truly moderate today. 

Holding the political middle is difficult when there is no one there to represent moderation or compromise.

Stranger in a Strange Land - Three Times

Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land came out in 1961. I first read it in the early 70s during my personal science fiction immersion year. It was one of many brilliant sci-fi novels given to me by a old friend. I remember my reaction was purely science fiction. By that I mean along with a dozen or so other sci-fi classics I consumed in a year or so, this was just one of many mind-opening adventures in the genre. Pure Sci-Fi.

Since that time I have had two highly different encounters with Michael Smith, the Stranger in a Strange Land. 

The novel "tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture." Wikipedia

Sometime in the late 80s in L.A., I got briefly involved with a Heinlein groupie group. On one occasion, there was proposed to be a discussion between half a dozen or so of Heinlein's main characters. Mind you by this time Heinlein had written 32 novels and over 50 short stories. A week before the event, no  one had taken Michael Smith and I was asked by the pseudo-leader to consider the slot. I read Stranger again paying particular attention to how the main character thought, spoke and acted. 

While the Heinlein character discussion event was basically a bust, I gain a new perspective on character analysis and a distaste for Heinlein groupies.

My third round with Michael Smith & company came early this summer on my drive North. I listened to the novel on audio while traversing Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and a bit of Michigan.

This third read (listen) all I could think of from the first chapter was - cult. Perhaps a kind, loving, if not peaceful cult but a cult none the less. 

I ponder, was on not aware in my 20s or 40s of the cultish aspects of Stranger? Or perhaps is it the times we live in that make this aspect of the story so forceful today?

What I do know is that the Martian greeting - "Thou Art God" has several interpretations, not all of which are pleasant. However, and this is a strong however, a sci-fi aficionado must have Stranger in a Strange Land on any must read list.