gwydion | Forever Behind (Reply)

* "Sudan ceasefire starts precariously as continued fighting reported:" https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/air-strikes-hit-khartoum-seven-day-ceasefire-approaches-2023-05-22/

* "UN: Sudan conflict displaces over 1.3 million, including some 320K to neighboring countries:" https://apnews.com/article/sudan-conflict-military-paramilitary-displaced-un-787b00cb9203335dc834369aabb3b202

* "As more women forgo the hijab, Iran’s government pushes back:" https://apnews.com/article/iran-headscarf-hijab-protests-unrest-7cfce99b8841d6df5e8ad95ec8032b28

* "Anti-overhaul protests enter 20th week as compromise talks remain stalled:" https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-overhaul-protests-set-to-enter-20th-week-as-compromise-talks-remain-stalled/

* "Thousands in Jerusalem rally against budget, deals for ultra-Orthodox:" https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-in-jerusalem-rally-against-budget-deals-for-ultra-orthodox/

* "The State Of Israel:"

Watch on YouTube

* "France pension protest held on outskirts of Cannes Film Festival:" https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/france-pension-protest-held-outskirts-cannes-film-festival-99492995

* "Pakistan’s Imran Khan wins bail in multiple cases from anti-terrorist court:" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-imran-khan-wins-bail-multiple-cases-anti-terrorist-court-bloomberg-2023-05-23/

* "Key aide of Pakistan's Imran Khan resigns amidst standoff with army:" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-considering-banning-imran-khans-party-defence-minister-2023-05-24/

* "The Fugitive Princesses of Dubai:" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/08/the-fugitive-princesses-of-dubai

* "Russian lawyer claims Putin is building settlements for conservatives looking to leave the US for 'ideological reasons':" https://www.rawstory.com/russian-lawyer-claims-putin-is-building-settlements-for-conservatives-looking-to-leave-the-us-for-ideological-reasons/

* "Life inside the South African gangs risking everything for copper:" https://www.ft.com/content/19973223-cda7-43c0-8ba5-ddd329fc9ff9?accessToken=zwAF-3NAn_Ggkc8ZlzIjzadDwNOLpd3TKfyf-Q.MEYCIQCdkXLApDF5LercBIVa5DHnMQA8t4Geek0BR_d5HLnjDwIhAItJ6AnaORpQmAUQHBHBj5RC3N5S6FP6_4oPCR5xKUNZ&sharetype=gift&token=ddc1c232-edc3-45e8-ac8a-fc676f0559dc

* "Jamaica’s break from British monarchy must bring about queer liberation, activists say:" https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/20/jamaica-republic-lgbtq-rights-kings-coronation/

* Looks like the opening salvo for political purges of schools and university and censorship to me. "Tory MP Miriam Cates thinks ‘cultural Marxism’ is ‘destroying children’s souls’. No, seriously:" https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/17/miriam-cates-cultural-marxism-national-conservatism-conference/

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* "The Counteroffensive:" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/counteroffensive-ukraine-zelensky-crimea/673781/

* "Ukraine restores power to Russia-occupied nuclear plant:" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-switched-standby-russia-installed-official-2023-05-22/

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* How?!? "Conservative group Moms for Liberty claims Joe Biden is trying to turn kids trans and gay:" https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/24/moms-for-liberty-trans-gay-kids-joe-biden/

* "Joe Biden said “there are at least three” genders & shut down a conservative activist:" https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/01/joe-biden-said-least-three-genders-shut-conservative-activist/

* The Republicans continue to win their war against the environment and Humanity. "Supreme Court dramatically shrinks Clean Water Act’s reach:" https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/25/supreme-court-dramatically-shrinks-clean-water-acts-reach-00098781

* "Harlan Crow refuses to cooperate with Dem senators’ Supreme Court probe :" https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/23/harlan-crow-supreme-court-probe-00098401

* The Republican war on the Economy continues. Want to know how much Republicans hate America? This much apparently. "White House details ‘severe damage’ to the economy if debt ceiling crisis occurs:" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-details-severe-damage-economy-debt-ceiling-default-occurs-rcna82743

* "Hayes: What the Republican debt ceiling threat is really about:" https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/hayes-what-the-republican-debt-ceiling-threat-is-really-about-175793221559

* "Saddled with Trump, unpopular policies, GOP toys with tanking economy under Biden:" https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/saddled-with-trump-unpopular-policies-gop-toys-with-tanking-economy-under-biden-175833157654

* "Hayes: ‘Deranged’ GOP debt plan would put these items on the chopping block:" https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/hayes-deranged-gop-debt-plan-would-put-these-items-on-the-chopping-block-176619589699

* Republicans don't want any further life saving vaccine research. When Republicans say the are pro-life, it looks like they mean pro-deadly virus life and on human type people. "White House Pushes to Save Key Covid Programs in Debt Ceiling Talks:" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/us/politics/biden-debt-ceiling-covid.html

* "House Dems take pessimistic tone on debt as McCarthy pushes to ‘finish up’ talks:" https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/24/debt-limit-talks-wednesday-kevin-mccarthy-00098564

* "Rich People’s Gain is Worth Less Than Poor People’s Pain:" https://doctorow.medium.com/rich-peoples-gain-is-worth-less-than-poor-people-s-pain-6c3631292841

* "From stakeouts to warrants: How federal investigators found more than 100 children cleaning slaughterhouses:" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-investigation-into-slaughterhouse-cleaning-company-that-hired-children-60-minutes-transcript-2023-05-07/

* "'They Just Need a Safe Place to Be:' How Public Transit Became the Last Safety Net In America:" https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3wvq5/they-just-need-a-safe-place-to-be-how-public-transit-became-the-last-safety-net-in-america

* "Low-income tenants lack options as old mobile home parks are razed:" https://apnews.com/article/mobile-home-evictions-housing-homelessness-796097305c4ef90d7d98e1fee1489284

* "Silo creator Graham Yost on why struggling writers needed to go on strike:" https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/21/graham-yost-silo-writers-strike/

* "Why Writers Are On Strike:"

Watch on YouTube

* This is a little round about, but please bear with me.

Squirrel and I had between us three expensive car repairs in just over a month, so amoung the many economies, Squirrel cancelled all the streaming services with due dates in a fifteen minute stretch, which is fine from my perspective, as I was the one saying things like, I'm not watching anything on X service until particular date, so if you aren't either why not cancel it until then. This is what he did originally, but at some point it got too much work for him to remember to turn things off and on in a cycle. These are his services which he kindly shares with me. One service (Not discontinued), is part of his in lieu of rent verbal agreement with me. The other one not cancelled has been getting increasingly glitchy for me and about the time of the cut offs, it took to refusing to load entirely, so I thought it was cancelled too until a couple of days ago. He's likely going back to cycling through services like he did until the last year or so. I only get Amazon twice a year, carefully spaced six months apart so I don't have to pay for it, in the two stretches when I am most likely to order something. (I mostly buy local, but I still have two family members left who I send gifts to and it's a lot simpler to not have to go shopping and deal with the post office lines. I plan any thing I can't easily find here, like the replacement heads for my mop and such to coincide with my free month, so no Prime either just yet, though hopefully next month, as that's when I need to send a gift).

In the mean time, I'm watching DvDs I have in my apartment on my bedroom TV, because there's not much going on the one channel that streams in there. I did one of my B5 rewatches last year, but for whatever reason didn't get to the movies and my copy of Crusade was stolen out of the truck during the great move of... was it '08 or '09? Anyway, a kind person sent me crusade and I gobbled that up first not having seen it since the theft. I'm rewatching the movies now, and these being DvDs, there's commentary.

The commentary on Thirdspace has a bunch of them talking about how different working on B5 was than their other (considerable) TV experience. They were talking about how the script was always delivered on time and they seldom had rewrites or added scenes, and if they did, they were usually fairly minor. (This came up be cause Thirdspace had a particularly iconic scene that was a rare case of delivered the day before which they needed because the movie was three minutes short.

They'd been talking about how most productions they'd worked on periodically had to stop while they waited for pages, how in soap opera you often had to learn the lines right before going on. Jeff Conaway considered getting his pages in advance a kid of luxury because when he was on Taxi the script changed constantly during shooting and they often ran through all colours before the final. On B5 they hardly ever had the second colour pages. So much of the cast were theater people, or had experience in particularly changeable genres like soap operas or comedy, they all tended to be really good memorisers and had discipline around it, which helped with the technobable, but also with the scripts coming in on time, the actors not on scene could run lines and rehearse in the corridors, which really helped the performances.

This was the real kicker: Because the plotting was all worked out in advance; the writers had the time and space they needed to write the scripts despite the complicated lore, large ensemble cast, and necessary emotional beats, and the generally stellar quality of the dialog after season one (Season one is good, but sometimes the dialog is a tad clunky in spots), and still turn them in when the director, actors, etc., needed them. This meant not only actors could really know their lines and have time to design the best performances, but things could be properly story boarded, the director could work out a shot list they could reasonably get through without long delays for pages and tell set, props, etc. departments what they might need well enough in advance to do things like build a bunch of extra corridors for an extra long walk and talk or whatever.

All the actors were amazed that they always got to go home at five. Shooting stopped on time! This hardly ever happens! They could make dinner plans even on a Friday and get proper sleep instead of Friday shooting running into Saturday to make up missed shots. Which I suspect means that all the tech side folk js too got to have personal lives and sleep. O.o For five years! Steady employment with a reliable schedule in TV! I bet it saved money too, to not have to pay over time, to not have all that standing around when they could be setting up the next shot which wastes everyone's time and money. People were happier and they weren't run as nearly ragged and they made five seasons of antifascist and anti-colonialist science fiction with characters and dialog that will live in my heart and mind until I die.

All because they let the showrunner show run and write with a staff of writers who could stay on the project long term. Stuff that got seeded in season one paid off in later seasons. The writers all knew the lore and backstories and the relationships and where things were going.

You can't make TV like that without writers. You can't make TV like that with minirooms and gig employees.

I know I keep harping on how important that the WGA wins and wins big on Tumblr. (I do things on it on the aggregate as well, but I don't trust a lot of the journalism because it tends to be slanted for the greedy ass corporations, so way less turns up there). This is why I care so much. Because tech crew got to drive home safe after a reasonable work day instead of falling asleep at the wheel and crashing. Because it was a huge benefit to the actors who got a chance to really practice their craft and still go home at night. Because the directors could focus on making the best show possible every week without mountains of extra hassle. Because things like B5 and Black sails and stranger Things and Umbrella Academy and pretty much every show I've loved intensely as an adult absolutely require a reasonably stable writer's room with writers paid well enough to live while they do it.

If WGA wins, everybody wins. The tiny sliver of profits it takes to make all this happen is negligible.

I hope SAG and DGA strike too. I hope they all stand together and stop the Capitalist horror that grinds up writers and tech folk like they were components and not utterly essential.

The WGA are not greedy; they are fighting for their livelihoods and their art and it infuriates me that people can't wait a little longer for all the ways it will make the world better if the Studios blink first.

* "Jewish Democrats call on McCarthy to censure Gosar over staffer’s reported beliefs:" https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4010382-jewish-democrats-call-on-mccarthy-to-censure-gosar-over-staffers-reported-beliefs/

* "George Santos Just Hired the Only Man He Can Trust:" https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/05/george-santos-just-hired-the-only-man-he-can-trust/

* "George Santos Is In Trouble:"

Watch on YouTube

* "FBI ‘Called Bluff’ on Jim Jordan Hearing, Says Ex-Asst. Director:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-called-bluff-on-jim-jordan-hearing-ex-asst-director-for-counterintelligence-frank-figliuzzi-says

* "Jordan’s FBI “whistleblower” may have lied under oath about funding from Trump ally: report:" https://www.salon.com/2023/05/23/jordans-fbi-whistleblower-may-have-lied-under-oath-about-funding-from-ally-report/

* Again? ""Nothing is off the table": Jim Jordan says he'll give a "hard look" at launching new Hillary probe:" https://www.salon.com/2023/05/22/nothing-is-off-the-table-jim-jordan-says-hell-give-a-hard-look-at-launching-new-hillary-probe/

* "House passes measure to block Biden's student debt relief program:" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-measure-block-bidens-student-debt-relief-program-rcna85974

* Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

* The Indivisible Guide: "A Practical Guide to defeating MAGA:" https://indivisible.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/20220104_Indivisible_%20A%20Practical%20Guide%20to%20Defeating%20MAGA.pdf

* "Harris County must remove its elections chief under new legislation headed to Gov. Greg Abbott:" https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/23/texas-legislature-harris-county-elections/

This is the end of Democracy. They have given themselves the power to overturn any election not in their favor in the most populous county in the state because it's majority minority. If votes don't count, then all the people living there have been permanently disenfranchised, since there is no mechanism to undo this outside of a court system republicans have also fixed.

This is the fascist agenda at work.

* "Ohio Republicans try to change state rules to keep abortion off ballots:" https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/ohio-republicans-try-to-change-state-rules-to-keep-abortion-off-ballots-176197701972

* "Let's talk about how there are no red states....:"

Watch on YouTube