if Abrams hired me to do a pass on Star Trek Into Darkness

If you just want the quick advice about whether to see the movie: if you liked the first, you'll like the second, but don't think too much about the plot.

Here be spoilers.

If I was revising the script, but had to keep to the basic outline:

1. I would've made Pike the bad Federation officer so Kirk would've had to defeat his father-surrogate.

2. I would've made the new woman a Security officer because she was too blatantly redundant, especially for a character who may be returning.

3. I would've ended the movie with Spock outsmarting Khan rather than beating him up. Emma suggested moving the bit with the torpedoes to the end, because it did a nice job of showing how Spock can be honest and tricky.

Jill Barber "Oh My My"

Jill Barber Oh My My - YouTube:


And a live version:

Are poor people invisible to science fiction fandom?

Convention fandom isn't cheap—two adults who want to go to a major US convention that's not local should plan to drop a thousand dollars or more on transportation, hotel, and meals. Travelling to distant cons simply isn't possible for many Americans. Even local cons are unaffordable for many—remember that in addition to the US's millions of unemployed folks, the working poor, who earn less than the poverty line, number 46.2 million.

I know of three fannish organizations that cover convention costs:

1. TAFF helps popular fans make trans-Atlantic visits.

2. DUFF is the equivalent for trans-Pacific visits.

3. Con or Bust takes a race-based approach to aid.

But if there's financially-based aid in fandom, I haven't found it. TAFF and DUFF focus on established fans, and at Con or Bust, poor fans of color appear to compete with richer ones—one of Con or Bust's first beneficiaries was an Indian who described herself as upper-class—and poor fans of no color are ineligible, even though Martin Luther King's 1967 observation is still true: there are twice as many poor whites as poor blacks in the USA.

Is there a group that I don't know about? Or in this profit-focused nation, is the idea of helping poor people go to conventions as silly as helping poor people go to Disneyland?

the problem with "problematic", and an apology

I was reading someone's post recently, and when I got to the word "problematic", I clicked away without finishing the sentence.

"Problematic" usually means "I can't identify the problem, but I suspect there is one, and if I'm right, someone will rant at me unless I stick in a pre-emptive 'problematic'." It's the first word I would put on a list of empty words loved by people who want to sound smarter than they are. If you know the problem, say so. If you don't, be brave enough to say you don't. Don't shilly-shally with space-fillers like "problematic".

I've used "problematic" in the past. I am truly sorry. It will not happen again.

the wisdom of Terre Roche

The Hitless Songwriter - NYTimes.com: "I’ve given up on the idea of writing a commercial song. And when I did that, I entered into a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with songwriting, unencumbered by the demands of the marketplace."

Some people will think this sounds like sour grapes. But it's only a hard truth that's good to learn.

"This Is Water" by David Foster Wallace

THIS IS WATER - YouTube:

Longest-lasting marriages: white men and black women?

Interracial marriage in the United States - Wikipedia: "White wife/Black husband marriages show twice the divorce rate of White wife/White husband couples by the 10th year of marriage, whereas Black wife/White husband marriages are 44% less likely to end in divorce than White wife/White husband couples over the same period."

That's based on ’’But Will It Last?’’: Marital Instability Among Interracial and Same-Race Couples (PDF).

h/t Cowboy Don, in comments at interracial romance in comic books.