Peoples,
Bear witness to an unprecedented action:
I will, in the space of this blog post, combine two very different cultures seemlessly and hyper-effectively..... NOW!
In Japan, advertising for just about anything invariably includes the term "安心" or "anshin". It is not uncommon to see these Kanji written on billboards, posters and van panels, advertising services as wide and varied as supermarkets, taxis, English conversation schools("Heartful English", one of the translations for "anshin", and NO, 'heartful' is not a real word, nor should it be!), other legitimate schools, barbers, tax accountants, and I'm not sure but they probably even have it on the side of factories that still produce stuff (unlike in my home country, where production ceased long ago and ran away to China).
And in my own country of Australia, and indeed intertwined with the general "Western" culture that mine and all the other English-speaking countries share, especially the USA, ad campiagns for just about anything are certain to include one particular message: You are not good enough as you are naturally, what you have done so far to improve yourself is not good enough either, but if you buy this product/consume this good you will be perfect! And of course, the message is never so directly (nor responsibly) put forth. There can be no liability, after all, when the message is merely being implied, and vaguely at that!
In Japan, just quickly again, there is also a "campaign" (aptly written in Katakana, ie they stole the word from English even though there ARE native Japanese words that could easily suffice), there is a "campiagn" about once every 10 minutes or so. My previous job had me endure a grand total of about 10 campiagns off the top of my head... granted, that is not one every 10 minutes, but I assume yo are smart enough to realise the reasoning behind my gross exaggerations.
So, without further ado, I will present my latest ad campaign for this Blog:
(note: I do not have the resources, time, nor enough motivation to begin with to make this anywhere near the level of a cosmetic product ad)
(Note2: I've also been boggling myself (sounds dirty, doesn't it??) with my pension return policy, and a bit of health insurance reading lately, too!)
BLOG READER CAMPAIGN!!!!!!!!
Warm and happy blog-reading goodness!
Are you happy? Do you want to make friends?
Come and read The Tominator's blog. Cool people do.
That hot guy/girl in your life may or may not read this blog, and what may or may not happen if you read it too?
We guarantee that something short of nothing, or at least anything might change or happen or remain the same, or become sexier, or not, or you will (or will not) get that blowjob/other-form-of-oral-not-sex you've been wanting.
Bring a friend and you will get 25% of your first three quarters charge to bills and 99% of the last nine thousandths off the joining fee. (Yes, it still costs you an arm and a leg, but nont the one you write with (or the one you favour when you play soccer)).
It is joyful, heartful, and happiness to come and be this blog reader's message receiver! Let's enjoy together!!
Anshin!
Any questions? No?
From The Tominator.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
INVICTUS
Yesterday I saw the movie "Invictus". It was GREAT, and I suggest that ALL of you go out and see it ASAP!
Here is the poem that Nelson Mandela used while he was in Robben Island prison, to keep himself sane, and survive. It was a centrepieve of the movie, and obviously the title of it, too.
I like it for many reasons, and personally I will note here that it does not suggest that there is any particular god or supreme being to thank for his sanity or survival, after all, God had forsaken him for 29 years. No it all comes from within, and I think this poem fits rather well with the life-view that I am trying to develop and express here.
Enjoy!
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley
From The Tominator.
Here is the poem that Nelson Mandela used while he was in Robben Island prison, to keep himself sane, and survive. It was a centrepieve of the movie, and obviously the title of it, too.
I like it for many reasons, and personally I will note here that it does not suggest that there is any particular god or supreme being to thank for his sanity or survival, after all, God had forsaken him for 29 years. No it all comes from within, and I think this poem fits rather well with the life-view that I am trying to develop and express here.
Enjoy!
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley
From The Tominator.
Battlestar Galactica: Felix Gaeta
Battlestar Galactica is my favourite show, and I have felt compelled today to write about one of the best characters (they are ALL great, but anyway). I am focusing on Lt. Felix Gaeta, and may do more on other characters later.
I wrote it aimed at my friend, but I have included here the entire glory of it. Settle in, it's a long one.
As for the reason I'm writing now: It is related to feelings from my previous job, or more directly it is related to the world/life perspective that is Tom, that I have been generating and moulding with life experiences to date, and into the future, too, of which my recently ended job is of course a part. Fittingly enough, I can draw on a particular episode of Battlestar Galactica, my favourite show, to do it, too.
Science Fiction is a look at our future, what we could be, it is a look and what we are doing, what is possible, and more often than not it looks directly at the sun and shows us what we are doing wrong, as well as what we may be doing right.
I wonder if you can recall the episode "Blood on the Scales" from Season 4. It was the episode (maybe the second of 2?) where Felix Gaeta tried to mutiny against Admiral Adama. He had joined forces with Tom Zarek, and almost looked to succeed. For reasons that you probably know, and that I would much enjoy discussing with you later, Adama won out, and Gaeta and Zarek were shot and flushed into space.
But from my recollection right now, I want to say this:
Gaeta, for what he may have been, and what he may have become, I believe honestly wanted to do the RIGHT thing. He honestly and truly wanted to do the right thing.
*When he was a mere officer on the Galactica, he performed his duties and safely jumped the entire fleet through the galaxy.
*When Baltar was in trouble for the tape that one of the Number 6s brought in, claiming to be proof of him tampering with the Defence Mainframe on Caprica before the Cylon Apocalypse, Gaeta was the one to push through and determine that the tape really really was a fake, and freed Baltar
*When the election between Baltar and Roslin came, he was the one to realise there was fraud and tampering, and also weeded it out and allowed Democracy to prevail.
*When New Caprica was established, he became to aide or minister or Secretary or whatever the title, to President Baltar. He honestly believed, despite the Cylon occupation, that from his high office he could help all the people in the new human settlement, and could help lead them into a better future on their new home.
*Gaeta was also the man who fed intelligence and information to the Caprica Resistance, and was the instrumental man in allowing the Galactica to gain radio communication with the Resistance, and ultimately organise the Exodus and liberation of the humans from the unwelcome and unwanted Cylon rule, and liberated humanity again.
There are more things that Gaeta did, and now that I look at what I just wrote, I think he is one of the most important characters in the whole damn show!
Gaeta did all these things with the purest intentions, and for all the right reasons, too. He was honest about his desire to help and make things better, but Gaeta was a victim of irony more often than not. Was he a victim of circumstance? I think not, because the consequences of all his actions were consequences of actions that he took explicitly of his own free will.
*When Gaete was a mere officer, he once accidentally stranded the Galactica god-knows-where and the fleet somewhere else, allowing in the meantime a full-on Cylon Centurion raid of the Battlestar. Gaeta fixed this problem by networking the computers and sorting out the Jump-mistake. But even then, when he networked the computers he allowed the Cylons attacking his firewalls to implant a sleeper virus that awoke a few episodes later and caused more problems!
*When that Number 6 in the uniform and glasses tried to frame Baltar, it is obvious that the fleet, in all unobjective thinking, would have been better off if Baltar had been jettisoned as soon as possible. But thanks to Gaeta's nobility, Baltar remained, and continued to wreak havoc on the human race in many more ways than one, not the least of which was the New Caprica fiasco. ((But for all the terrible things to be said of Baltar, we can honestly say that Baltar is the epitome of the conscience-free Human Being, the human that is devoid of compassion for others and seeks only to preserve his own hide at ALL costs, and find gratification when not running like a fucking rat. We'll talk about that again later, too.)) Let the record show that Baltar did not actually touch the Defence Mainframes, so the tape WAS indeed a fake. He actually let his fuck-buddy Number 6 (who seduced him all too easily) fiddle with the computers and tear all the walls and windows down.
*When Gaeta found the election was rigged, he was well within his rights, and indeed on the side of democratic righteousness to report it and clean it up. YES, this allowed Baltar to be President (for fuck's sake!), and the decision to land permanently on New Caprica. Roslin was correct in the conversation she had with Adama about the rigging:
Adama: It's the people's choice.
Roslin: They are making the wrong choice!
Democracy is not perfect, but it really is the best system we've got, and barring some grand evolutionary step of elightenment taking place, it is the best system we will ever have, too. Gaeta followed the ideals of democracy, which is really what we should ask and expect, and get, from all bureaucratic, executive, legistalive, judicial, and military officials. And from the entire human race, too, for that matter!
*When Gaeta was Baltar's right-hand man, he attempted to do the right thing from the top, but he was constantly blockaded by Baltar's lazy and self-indulging ways, and almost never got anything accomplished, because to do so required Baltar's active involvement (at least if Gaeta wanted to do things the correct way, the right way, which he did. - look at President Obama in the real world, trying to use Cogressional bipartisanship in the USA to pass landmark and necessary healthcare legislation. It ain't happening, and it ain't gonna happen because the Republicans are using freedom and democracy to be arseholes, and the Democrats are using it to be chicken-shit. Obama is the only one using it properly, to make the world a better place, and guess who is going to be dumped in three years???) ((And it is much in this scenario we see in the real world that Gaeta was a victim of the irony that dictates som many things, because the people, us, you, me, and everyone you saw today, let irony rule us. I hope I think to explain that one later, but for now let me just say that it DOES come right bakc to what I've been saying about self-esteem and confidence!)
*I believe that is was during the time on New Caprica that Gaeta woke up to the fact that doing things the right way, the just way, is not the best way to do things when the world you exist in is itself not right, and unjust a lot of the time.
Gaeta anonymously joined the Resistance because the "correct" thing, which was working with the democratically elected leader, was going nowhere. And wouldn't you know it? Gaeta's "unright" actions liberated the human race from the Cylons, and let them resume the search for Earth!
But this is where the story of Felix Gaeta takes an irreversibel turn. Having seen the positive consequences of his clandestine and "unjust" actions helping the Resistance, Gaeta decided that "unjust" and "unrught" was really the way to go. When summoned to Baltar's trial, Gaeta purjured himself and said that Baltar willingly and openly agreed with the Cylon Occupation back on New Caprica on all isses, even the death squads and raids by the New Caprica police. The fact, as you and I both know, is that Baltar was shit-scared of the Cylons, and sought only to preserve himself AT ALL COSTS. He did agree with many of the smaller issues, for sake of avoiding a confrontation with the Cylons where he might have to get physically violent, or may not get laid by one of the hot Cylons that night, or some other non-noble reason for forsaking his own race. But when the orders for the death-squads came, Baltar refused to sign the orders until one of the Cylons held a gun to his head. Naturally, Baltar caved and signed them, rather than fail his one primary objective in life, which was to preserve himself at all costs.
Gaeta tried to skewer Baltar on that. But here is where the irony comes back in. The same irony that meant his unjust actions for the Resistance turned out good, was the same irony that meant his unjust actions at Baltar's trial turned out very bad. Gaeta was found guilty of purjury and disgraced. He was sidelined in the fleet, and faded back into obscurity for a time until one of the main characters decided to eat with him and welcome him back into the fold.
And this leads me to Gaeta's demise in the episode "Blood on the Scales".
After all he did, both good and bad, Gaeta was essentially a saviour of the human race. Let us never forget that his conscious actions made it possible for the Exodus from New Caprica. And before that, he played a key part in keeping the entire fleet safe from the Cylons while they were running, except that one honest mistake, hiccup, when the Galactica was stranded, which he also FIXED of his own accord, too. (at the start of season 2)
Given everything, Gaeta was then shot in the leg by Samuel Anders, a Cylon sleeper and one of the Final Five. Gaeta's entire stance, throughout the show, was clearly and resolutely AGAINST the Cylons. So once Samuel Anders, a sports hero and then hero-leader of the Caprican resistance (both New and Old Caprica), was revealed to be a Cylon, Gaeta expected that his wound would be treated properly and immediately, and that Anders would be dealt with accordingly - ie jettisoned out an air-lock. All this was to happen according to Gaeta's fairly rigid perspective on reality. Cylons are bad, I was shot (inadvertantly, but anyway) by a Cylon, I am a human, the Cylon should die. This is a basic run-down of Gaeta's grip on reality.
However, reality did not follow the same path that Gaeta's rigid perspective demanded. For reasons that became the ultimate reason of the entire show, Anders was not punished. He was treated for wounds he himself had, which were greater than Gaeta's at the time. Gaeta, in medical terms only, became a victim of circumstance HERE ONLY, in that his leg was treated rather poorly: the bullet had shot through his bone, shattered it beyond repair, caused it to be amputated, and Gaeta was issued with a rather shoddy replacement limb on which he would stump around. He was a victim of circumtance because medical supplies on the Galactica, after years of running across the galaxy, heavy losses on New Caprica, and added strains from the Cylon Rebels joining the fleet too, meant that new legs were hard to come by. It also meant that Dr. Cottle, seemingly the only fully-trained medical expert on the entire damn ship (who wasn't bat-shit insane) had almost no time to attend to an amputated stump (about which not much can really be done) in the face of other medical problems, President Roslin's returned cancer, and new babies on the way for humans and Cylons alike. Gaeta's leg became a physical and tangible manifestation of his growing internal fury, and fury which was the result of nothing more than the irony I've already mentioned before.
His stump did not agree with the prosthetic replacement, and began to chafe and itch something terrible. Gaeta pestered the docotor for ANY help, but didn't really get it. He was visibly and in all states possible angry and agitated, and he saw the Cylons (Tigh and one of the 6s) beamingly happy at their bun in the oven. He was enraged beyond belief, and could not reconcile any of what he was seeing with that rigid perspective he always chose to view his world in. Cylons and humans were being friendly, fraternising. Cylons gained preference from the doctor over him. The truth of the whole thing, which is the point of the entire Battlestar Galactica narrative, is that the Cylons had become so like humanity, biologically, mentally, and philosophically, that there was no longer a way to tell them apart, and the rest of the major characters were dealing with the evolution of their reality in their own way, using facets and beliefs especial to each characters' own.
But Gaeta, he couldn't deal with it. He sought out a like-minded individual who also thought the Cylons had no place alongside humanity, no matter what, and led a mutiny against the leadership that had allowed these travesties to happen. That individual was Tom Zarek. Zarek may have had this viewpoint in common with Gaeta, but his was far less rigid than Gaeta's. Zarek was know before the Apocalypse for being a terrorist, willing to use bombs and violence to achieve his ends, essentially ignoring the morailty of the means to that those ends are realised.
Zarek had the balls, and frankly the evil inside him to order the massacre of the Quorum of Twelve during his mutiny with Gaeta. Zarek was willing to commit more atrocities, all in the name of a rather realistic view on the world which was heavily tinged with resent at both being in prison for 20 years, and also for never ACTUALLY achieving his ends, despite the hoopla he had created. Zarek's realism is questionable in the face of his apparent insanity, but is is also, paradoxically, confirmed by that insanity -- Zarek, probably during his stint in prison (leading up to the Apocalypse) had realised the reality that he had never achieved his goals, and that he may never achieve them. In light of this, he was willing to sacrifice himself in a blaze of glory, so that even in the least he could be remembered as a hero of sorts for the way he died, if not also for the reasons he died. Zarek was prepared to die on the original confrontation with Lee Adama (season 1) on his proson ship, the Astral Queen, and at many points throughout the show he exhibited the same desire to die grandiously. This is insane for obvious reasons, but also realistic in that a dead man is much harder to forget and say bad things about than a living one. A dead man is frozen in time, often viewed as such in his most positive aspects, while a living man is capable of making mistakes, and prone to that universal irony, he can even disgrace himself again and again.
Gaeta was sure what he was doing was the right thing, just as sure as he was in every other instance mentioned and not mentioned here. The Cylons were evil, pure and simple. THey had to go. Zarek was not the ideal partner, but he seemed to have the same idea, and lets face it, there was no other choice. I believe that had there been ANY other chioce, Gaeta would not have chosen Zarek as his fellow mutineer-leader.
Gaeta had a lot of support for his mutiny, because many people heard him speak and agreed. The mutiny was very close to a success. But irony lashes back again. the "just" or "right" thing to do is not to mutiny. As a matter of a dramatic irony, the audience of the show are witness and most of the time 100% sure that Admiral Adama is a good man, and knows what he is doing, and when he is not sure, he finds the right way soon enough. Adama opposed settling New Caprica, he brought in the Galactica to liberate it, and Adama even agreed with Gaeta that the election rigging in season one had to be rectified. These are but the tip of the iceberg in the way of examples of the character of Adama.
All throughout the muitiny, Gaeta's stump was itching, and seemed even to itch more unbearably as the mutiny continued. With the invaluable benefit of hindsight, we can probably now say that the itching was some sort of dramatic, physical manifestation of the true rightness of everything, telling Gaeta at first to ease up and change his perspective, and then carrying the same message to him during the mutiny, to say that he was definitely doing the wrong thing and should stop and fix his mess immediately.
Ironically enough, once the mutiny failed and Gaeta and Zarek were presented to the firing squad, it was just before the squad fired that Gaeta looked down and realised that the itching had stopped.
Was this because the non-rightness of the mutiny finally ending? Was it because Gaeta, presented with certain death, could now relax his rigid perspective and finally see things differently? In both cases, the above-stated reasons for the "message" in his itch would find reason to stop, and hence leave his stump at ease.
One thing I can say for sure: The itching was a message, but it was no message from any god or superior being. The simple facts of cold, hard, uncoloured reality are that there is no being superior to any other. We are all equal. Battlestar Galactica's ultimate message showed this with the Cylons, so different we thought, ending up exactly the same as us, and beginning the new life and new world on the second Earth at the end of the series. We are all equal, and any one of us who thinks otherwise is not denying a divine proclamation, they are denying a simple, basic fact of existence in the reality of the show, and equally in our own reality. The show's message is, as I said so long ago in this message, a reflection, showing is how we can be, what we are, what would happen, and all is delivered with an unusually good narrative and dramatic action. THAT is why I love this show!!!
Gaeta always wanted to do the right thing. And if you look back through this message, you will see me use the word "irony" a hell of a lot of times. I use this to make it easier to swallow while I'm shoving everything else down your throat.
In truth, "irony" is no really irony. Ironic, right?
Most religions label the "irony" I have mentioned so many times here as a divine will, "God's Work", the way of the universe, the will of the Gods, it is God working in "mysterious ways", etc. etc. And let's face it, in a world of individuals who have extremely LOW self-esteem, it is natural to have extremely depressing perspectives of this world, and therefore extremely HIGH presumptions of that Heaven is like. Therefore it is natural to assume that there is a God of some sort, or Gods, that rule this Heaven, this glorious utopia, often said to be located in the sky. Our world of our waking lives is so utterly depressing some times that the idea that when it all finally ends we can go to an eternally happy place and never have too much of a good thing while being there is so potent to think about and believe.
It is therefore also natural for me to say that a person with High self-esteem, and true confidence in life has absolutely no need for any 'Heaven". All people have the ablility to create Heaven on Earth right here and right NOW, and only the people with high self-esteem are able to realise it.
Being human, we are prone to fits of depression, and fluctuations in our moods and thinking. As I write this now, I am in a particularly level-headed and clear-thinking state of mind, but I know that in the near future, possibly even later today, I will have some sort of cause for a lowering of my self-esteem. But I am smart enough to know that, even in the darkest hours there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. My greatest fears, of which I will not write about right now, if or when they are realised I will be crushed, but I hope not absolutely so.
Gaeta held a rigid perspective. He held an absolutist perspective. The nature of his actions seemed to change throughout the show, but in truth his absolutism never changed. As is the nature of absolutism. As a mere officer, his duty was absolutely to ferry the fleet in each jump. He would follow the same steps each time, and the same thing would happen, absolutely, each and every time. But it didn't. The Battlestar was stranded, and boarded by Cylons during that one particular, ironic, screw up.
In the election debacle, Gaeta followed an absolute line of belief in democracy, essentially, whough not wittingly, assuming that democracy was a perfect system, which we all know it is NOT, and was subsequently proven imperfect by the entire Baltar/New Caprica travesty.
As a covert part of the New Caprica Resistance, Gaeta had a rare, and brief, period of non-absolutism, whereby he was working for the government and simultaneously working against it. This is not absolutism, because it simply cannot be. It is expalined, however, a transition period between two different styles of Absolutism. When he purjured himself, he had finally decided that his original altruistic, benevolent absolutism was wrong, and so chose to become malevolently absolutist. They ARE different styles, but they are one in the same Absolutist!
His view on the Cylons remained Absolutist while the general popular view began to shift, and once this major difference became all to apparent, it also became all too irreconsilable with the absolutist views he held. This here is an excellent example of a man holding his own beliefs no matter what, against everything, even the tide and momentum of history itself. And it was against that momentum, which is an unstoppable force, that Gaeta's immovable Absolutism came into fierce and violent conflict.
To be fair, Gaeta was only human. He honestly cannot be expected to perceive the changes automatically, and adjust himself accordingly. He had assumed the same mindset that many many, the majority of humans have chosen to live their lives with as well. He was capable of making the big changes, seeing the clearly-visible and spotting the plainly obvious, but he was incapable of noting the blindingly obvious, and could not feel the gradual and smaller changes in the currents of reality. This is the same reason that the Earth, our Earth, was considered to be flat and at the centre of the universe for so long. Nobody has the attention span to watch the stars move across the sky for an entire night (and do nothing else), and thereby figure out that our movement pattern is incongruous to the official theory that we are in the centre of it all. As for all other circumstances, it was either too scary to sail off the "edge" of the world, or too difficult or just plain unnecessary to create instruments and tools to do proper calculations. And when some genius DOES put one together and figure out the real truth, it is ever so easy for the rest of us humans to view him as a heretic, devil, wierdo, or other contemporary euphamism for someone who is different and is uncomfortably so.
Gaeta had the right intentions, but his perspective was wrong. Gaeta is an excellent, almost flawless representation of ceratin fundamental sides of humanity in this science fiction drama - and I will not say he IS perfect, because I fear it as an absolutist ring to it that would make me sound like a hypocrite.
Why did the itching stop at the end? Well, in honest truth, Gaeta had made it stop. Dramtically, it is explained best as a manifestation of the wrongfulness of the deeds he was undertaking. In reality and physiologically speaking, it is explained as his own mind plaguing itself with worries and concerns, and refusing to relax when necessary, and refusing to adapt when the momentum of history, politics, and the world in general demand that he do so.
Gaeta is a great example of all this, and examples are the best way to explain and to learn new things. I could probably go on, but this message is long enough as it is.
I LOVE that show!!!!!!
From Tom.
I wrote it aimed at my friend, but I have included here the entire glory of it. Settle in, it's a long one.
As for the reason I'm writing now: It is related to feelings from my previous job, or more directly it is related to the world/life perspective that is Tom, that I have been generating and moulding with life experiences to date, and into the future, too, of which my recently ended job is of course a part. Fittingly enough, I can draw on a particular episode of Battlestar Galactica, my favourite show, to do it, too.
Science Fiction is a look at our future, what we could be, it is a look and what we are doing, what is possible, and more often than not it looks directly at the sun and shows us what we are doing wrong, as well as what we may be doing right.
I wonder if you can recall the episode "Blood on the Scales" from Season 4. It was the episode (maybe the second of 2?) where Felix Gaeta tried to mutiny against Admiral Adama. He had joined forces with Tom Zarek, and almost looked to succeed. For reasons that you probably know, and that I would much enjoy discussing with you later, Adama won out, and Gaeta and Zarek were shot and flushed into space.
But from my recollection right now, I want to say this:
Gaeta, for what he may have been, and what he may have become, I believe honestly wanted to do the RIGHT thing. He honestly and truly wanted to do the right thing.
*When he was a mere officer on the Galactica, he performed his duties and safely jumped the entire fleet through the galaxy.
*When Baltar was in trouble for the tape that one of the Number 6s brought in, claiming to be proof of him tampering with the Defence Mainframe on Caprica before the Cylon Apocalypse, Gaeta was the one to push through and determine that the tape really really was a fake, and freed Baltar
*When the election between Baltar and Roslin came, he was the one to realise there was fraud and tampering, and also weeded it out and allowed Democracy to prevail.
*When New Caprica was established, he became to aide or minister or Secretary or whatever the title, to President Baltar. He honestly believed, despite the Cylon occupation, that from his high office he could help all the people in the new human settlement, and could help lead them into a better future on their new home.
*Gaeta was also the man who fed intelligence and information to the Caprica Resistance, and was the instrumental man in allowing the Galactica to gain radio communication with the Resistance, and ultimately organise the Exodus and liberation of the humans from the unwelcome and unwanted Cylon rule, and liberated humanity again.
There are more things that Gaeta did, and now that I look at what I just wrote, I think he is one of the most important characters in the whole damn show!
Gaeta did all these things with the purest intentions, and for all the right reasons, too. He was honest about his desire to help and make things better, but Gaeta was a victim of irony more often than not. Was he a victim of circumstance? I think not, because the consequences of all his actions were consequences of actions that he took explicitly of his own free will.
*When Gaete was a mere officer, he once accidentally stranded the Galactica god-knows-where and the fleet somewhere else, allowing in the meantime a full-on Cylon Centurion raid of the Battlestar. Gaeta fixed this problem by networking the computers and sorting out the Jump-mistake. But even then, when he networked the computers he allowed the Cylons attacking his firewalls to implant a sleeper virus that awoke a few episodes later and caused more problems!
*When that Number 6 in the uniform and glasses tried to frame Baltar, it is obvious that the fleet, in all unobjective thinking, would have been better off if Baltar had been jettisoned as soon as possible. But thanks to Gaeta's nobility, Baltar remained, and continued to wreak havoc on the human race in many more ways than one, not the least of which was the New Caprica fiasco. ((But for all the terrible things to be said of Baltar, we can honestly say that Baltar is the epitome of the conscience-free Human Being, the human that is devoid of compassion for others and seeks only to preserve his own hide at ALL costs, and find gratification when not running like a fucking rat. We'll talk about that again later, too.)) Let the record show that Baltar did not actually touch the Defence Mainframes, so the tape WAS indeed a fake. He actually let his fuck-buddy Number 6 (who seduced him all too easily) fiddle with the computers and tear all the walls and windows down.
*When Gaeta found the election was rigged, he was well within his rights, and indeed on the side of democratic righteousness to report it and clean it up. YES, this allowed Baltar to be President (for fuck's sake!), and the decision to land permanently on New Caprica. Roslin was correct in the conversation she had with Adama about the rigging:
Adama: It's the people's choice.
Roslin: They are making the wrong choice!
Democracy is not perfect, but it really is the best system we've got, and barring some grand evolutionary step of elightenment taking place, it is the best system we will ever have, too. Gaeta followed the ideals of democracy, which is really what we should ask and expect, and get, from all bureaucratic, executive, legistalive, judicial, and military officials. And from the entire human race, too, for that matter!
*When Gaeta was Baltar's right-hand man, he attempted to do the right thing from the top, but he was constantly blockaded by Baltar's lazy and self-indulging ways, and almost never got anything accomplished, because to do so required Baltar's active involvement (at least if Gaeta wanted to do things the correct way, the right way, which he did. - look at President Obama in the real world, trying to use Cogressional bipartisanship in the USA to pass landmark and necessary healthcare legislation. It ain't happening, and it ain't gonna happen because the Republicans are using freedom and democracy to be arseholes, and the Democrats are using it to be chicken-shit. Obama is the only one using it properly, to make the world a better place, and guess who is going to be dumped in three years???) ((And it is much in this scenario we see in the real world that Gaeta was a victim of the irony that dictates som many things, because the people, us, you, me, and everyone you saw today, let irony rule us. I hope I think to explain that one later, but for now let me just say that it DOES come right bakc to what I've been saying about self-esteem and confidence!)
*I believe that is was during the time on New Caprica that Gaeta woke up to the fact that doing things the right way, the just way, is not the best way to do things when the world you exist in is itself not right, and unjust a lot of the time.
Gaeta anonymously joined the Resistance because the "correct" thing, which was working with the democratically elected leader, was going nowhere. And wouldn't you know it? Gaeta's "unright" actions liberated the human race from the Cylons, and let them resume the search for Earth!
But this is where the story of Felix Gaeta takes an irreversibel turn. Having seen the positive consequences of his clandestine and "unjust" actions helping the Resistance, Gaeta decided that "unjust" and "unrught" was really the way to go. When summoned to Baltar's trial, Gaeta purjured himself and said that Baltar willingly and openly agreed with the Cylon Occupation back on New Caprica on all isses, even the death squads and raids by the New Caprica police. The fact, as you and I both know, is that Baltar was shit-scared of the Cylons, and sought only to preserve himself AT ALL COSTS. He did agree with many of the smaller issues, for sake of avoiding a confrontation with the Cylons where he might have to get physically violent, or may not get laid by one of the hot Cylons that night, or some other non-noble reason for forsaking his own race. But when the orders for the death-squads came, Baltar refused to sign the orders until one of the Cylons held a gun to his head. Naturally, Baltar caved and signed them, rather than fail his one primary objective in life, which was to preserve himself at all costs.
Gaeta tried to skewer Baltar on that. But here is where the irony comes back in. The same irony that meant his unjust actions for the Resistance turned out good, was the same irony that meant his unjust actions at Baltar's trial turned out very bad. Gaeta was found guilty of purjury and disgraced. He was sidelined in the fleet, and faded back into obscurity for a time until one of the main characters decided to eat with him and welcome him back into the fold.
And this leads me to Gaeta's demise in the episode "Blood on the Scales".
After all he did, both good and bad, Gaeta was essentially a saviour of the human race. Let us never forget that his conscious actions made it possible for the Exodus from New Caprica. And before that, he played a key part in keeping the entire fleet safe from the Cylons while they were running, except that one honest mistake, hiccup, when the Galactica was stranded, which he also FIXED of his own accord, too. (at the start of season 2)
Given everything, Gaeta was then shot in the leg by Samuel Anders, a Cylon sleeper and one of the Final Five. Gaeta's entire stance, throughout the show, was clearly and resolutely AGAINST the Cylons. So once Samuel Anders, a sports hero and then hero-leader of the Caprican resistance (both New and Old Caprica), was revealed to be a Cylon, Gaeta expected that his wound would be treated properly and immediately, and that Anders would be dealt with accordingly - ie jettisoned out an air-lock. All this was to happen according to Gaeta's fairly rigid perspective on reality. Cylons are bad, I was shot (inadvertantly, but anyway) by a Cylon, I am a human, the Cylon should die. This is a basic run-down of Gaeta's grip on reality.
However, reality did not follow the same path that Gaeta's rigid perspective demanded. For reasons that became the ultimate reason of the entire show, Anders was not punished. He was treated for wounds he himself had, which were greater than Gaeta's at the time. Gaeta, in medical terms only, became a victim of circumstance HERE ONLY, in that his leg was treated rather poorly: the bullet had shot through his bone, shattered it beyond repair, caused it to be amputated, and Gaeta was issued with a rather shoddy replacement limb on which he would stump around. He was a victim of circumtance because medical supplies on the Galactica, after years of running across the galaxy, heavy losses on New Caprica, and added strains from the Cylon Rebels joining the fleet too, meant that new legs were hard to come by. It also meant that Dr. Cottle, seemingly the only fully-trained medical expert on the entire damn ship (who wasn't bat-shit insane) had almost no time to attend to an amputated stump (about which not much can really be done) in the face of other medical problems, President Roslin's returned cancer, and new babies on the way for humans and Cylons alike. Gaeta's leg became a physical and tangible manifestation of his growing internal fury, and fury which was the result of nothing more than the irony I've already mentioned before.
His stump did not agree with the prosthetic replacement, and began to chafe and itch something terrible. Gaeta pestered the docotor for ANY help, but didn't really get it. He was visibly and in all states possible angry and agitated, and he saw the Cylons (Tigh and one of the 6s) beamingly happy at their bun in the oven. He was enraged beyond belief, and could not reconcile any of what he was seeing with that rigid perspective he always chose to view his world in. Cylons and humans were being friendly, fraternising. Cylons gained preference from the doctor over him. The truth of the whole thing, which is the point of the entire Battlestar Galactica narrative, is that the Cylons had become so like humanity, biologically, mentally, and philosophically, that there was no longer a way to tell them apart, and the rest of the major characters were dealing with the evolution of their reality in their own way, using facets and beliefs especial to each characters' own.
But Gaeta, he couldn't deal with it. He sought out a like-minded individual who also thought the Cylons had no place alongside humanity, no matter what, and led a mutiny against the leadership that had allowed these travesties to happen. That individual was Tom Zarek. Zarek may have had this viewpoint in common with Gaeta, but his was far less rigid than Gaeta's. Zarek was know before the Apocalypse for being a terrorist, willing to use bombs and violence to achieve his ends, essentially ignoring the morailty of the means to that those ends are realised.
Zarek had the balls, and frankly the evil inside him to order the massacre of the Quorum of Twelve during his mutiny with Gaeta. Zarek was willing to commit more atrocities, all in the name of a rather realistic view on the world which was heavily tinged with resent at both being in prison for 20 years, and also for never ACTUALLY achieving his ends, despite the hoopla he had created. Zarek's realism is questionable in the face of his apparent insanity, but is is also, paradoxically, confirmed by that insanity -- Zarek, probably during his stint in prison (leading up to the Apocalypse) had realised the reality that he had never achieved his goals, and that he may never achieve them. In light of this, he was willing to sacrifice himself in a blaze of glory, so that even in the least he could be remembered as a hero of sorts for the way he died, if not also for the reasons he died. Zarek was prepared to die on the original confrontation with Lee Adama (season 1) on his proson ship, the Astral Queen, and at many points throughout the show he exhibited the same desire to die grandiously. This is insane for obvious reasons, but also realistic in that a dead man is much harder to forget and say bad things about than a living one. A dead man is frozen in time, often viewed as such in his most positive aspects, while a living man is capable of making mistakes, and prone to that universal irony, he can even disgrace himself again and again.
Gaeta was sure what he was doing was the right thing, just as sure as he was in every other instance mentioned and not mentioned here. The Cylons were evil, pure and simple. THey had to go. Zarek was not the ideal partner, but he seemed to have the same idea, and lets face it, there was no other choice. I believe that had there been ANY other chioce, Gaeta would not have chosen Zarek as his fellow mutineer-leader.
Gaeta had a lot of support for his mutiny, because many people heard him speak and agreed. The mutiny was very close to a success. But irony lashes back again. the "just" or "right" thing to do is not to mutiny. As a matter of a dramatic irony, the audience of the show are witness and most of the time 100% sure that Admiral Adama is a good man, and knows what he is doing, and when he is not sure, he finds the right way soon enough. Adama opposed settling New Caprica, he brought in the Galactica to liberate it, and Adama even agreed with Gaeta that the election rigging in season one had to be rectified. These are but the tip of the iceberg in the way of examples of the character of Adama.
All throughout the muitiny, Gaeta's stump was itching, and seemed even to itch more unbearably as the mutiny continued. With the invaluable benefit of hindsight, we can probably now say that the itching was some sort of dramatic, physical manifestation of the true rightness of everything, telling Gaeta at first to ease up and change his perspective, and then carrying the same message to him during the mutiny, to say that he was definitely doing the wrong thing and should stop and fix his mess immediately.
Ironically enough, once the mutiny failed and Gaeta and Zarek were presented to the firing squad, it was just before the squad fired that Gaeta looked down and realised that the itching had stopped.
Was this because the non-rightness of the mutiny finally ending? Was it because Gaeta, presented with certain death, could now relax his rigid perspective and finally see things differently? In both cases, the above-stated reasons for the "message" in his itch would find reason to stop, and hence leave his stump at ease.
One thing I can say for sure: The itching was a message, but it was no message from any god or superior being. The simple facts of cold, hard, uncoloured reality are that there is no being superior to any other. We are all equal. Battlestar Galactica's ultimate message showed this with the Cylons, so different we thought, ending up exactly the same as us, and beginning the new life and new world on the second Earth at the end of the series. We are all equal, and any one of us who thinks otherwise is not denying a divine proclamation, they are denying a simple, basic fact of existence in the reality of the show, and equally in our own reality. The show's message is, as I said so long ago in this message, a reflection, showing is how we can be, what we are, what would happen, and all is delivered with an unusually good narrative and dramatic action. THAT is why I love this show!!!
Gaeta always wanted to do the right thing. And if you look back through this message, you will see me use the word "irony" a hell of a lot of times. I use this to make it easier to swallow while I'm shoving everything else down your throat.
In truth, "irony" is no really irony. Ironic, right?
Most religions label the "irony" I have mentioned so many times here as a divine will, "God's Work", the way of the universe, the will of the Gods, it is God working in "mysterious ways", etc. etc. And let's face it, in a world of individuals who have extremely LOW self-esteem, it is natural to have extremely depressing perspectives of this world, and therefore extremely HIGH presumptions of that Heaven is like. Therefore it is natural to assume that there is a God of some sort, or Gods, that rule this Heaven, this glorious utopia, often said to be located in the sky. Our world of our waking lives is so utterly depressing some times that the idea that when it all finally ends we can go to an eternally happy place and never have too much of a good thing while being there is so potent to think about and believe.
It is therefore also natural for me to say that a person with High self-esteem, and true confidence in life has absolutely no need for any 'Heaven". All people have the ablility to create Heaven on Earth right here and right NOW, and only the people with high self-esteem are able to realise it.
Being human, we are prone to fits of depression, and fluctuations in our moods and thinking. As I write this now, I am in a particularly level-headed and clear-thinking state of mind, but I know that in the near future, possibly even later today, I will have some sort of cause for a lowering of my self-esteem. But I am smart enough to know that, even in the darkest hours there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. My greatest fears, of which I will not write about right now, if or when they are realised I will be crushed, but I hope not absolutely so.
Gaeta held a rigid perspective. He held an absolutist perspective. The nature of his actions seemed to change throughout the show, but in truth his absolutism never changed. As is the nature of absolutism. As a mere officer, his duty was absolutely to ferry the fleet in each jump. He would follow the same steps each time, and the same thing would happen, absolutely, each and every time. But it didn't. The Battlestar was stranded, and boarded by Cylons during that one particular, ironic, screw up.
In the election debacle, Gaeta followed an absolute line of belief in democracy, essentially, whough not wittingly, assuming that democracy was a perfect system, which we all know it is NOT, and was subsequently proven imperfect by the entire Baltar/New Caprica travesty.
As a covert part of the New Caprica Resistance, Gaeta had a rare, and brief, period of non-absolutism, whereby he was working for the government and simultaneously working against it. This is not absolutism, because it simply cannot be. It is expalined, however, a transition period between two different styles of Absolutism. When he purjured himself, he had finally decided that his original altruistic, benevolent absolutism was wrong, and so chose to become malevolently absolutist. They ARE different styles, but they are one in the same Absolutist!
His view on the Cylons remained Absolutist while the general popular view began to shift, and once this major difference became all to apparent, it also became all too irreconsilable with the absolutist views he held. This here is an excellent example of a man holding his own beliefs no matter what, against everything, even the tide and momentum of history itself. And it was against that momentum, which is an unstoppable force, that Gaeta's immovable Absolutism came into fierce and violent conflict.
To be fair, Gaeta was only human. He honestly cannot be expected to perceive the changes automatically, and adjust himself accordingly. He had assumed the same mindset that many many, the majority of humans have chosen to live their lives with as well. He was capable of making the big changes, seeing the clearly-visible and spotting the plainly obvious, but he was incapable of noting the blindingly obvious, and could not feel the gradual and smaller changes in the currents of reality. This is the same reason that the Earth, our Earth, was considered to be flat and at the centre of the universe for so long. Nobody has the attention span to watch the stars move across the sky for an entire night (and do nothing else), and thereby figure out that our movement pattern is incongruous to the official theory that we are in the centre of it all. As for all other circumstances, it was either too scary to sail off the "edge" of the world, or too difficult or just plain unnecessary to create instruments and tools to do proper calculations. And when some genius DOES put one together and figure out the real truth, it is ever so easy for the rest of us humans to view him as a heretic, devil, wierdo, or other contemporary euphamism for someone who is different and is uncomfortably so.
Gaeta had the right intentions, but his perspective was wrong. Gaeta is an excellent, almost flawless representation of ceratin fundamental sides of humanity in this science fiction drama - and I will not say he IS perfect, because I fear it as an absolutist ring to it that would make me sound like a hypocrite.
Why did the itching stop at the end? Well, in honest truth, Gaeta had made it stop. Dramtically, it is explained best as a manifestation of the wrongfulness of the deeds he was undertaking. In reality and physiologically speaking, it is explained as his own mind plaguing itself with worries and concerns, and refusing to relax when necessary, and refusing to adapt when the momentum of history, politics, and the world in general demand that he do so.
Gaeta is a great example of all this, and examples are the best way to explain and to learn new things. I could probably go on, but this message is long enough as it is.
I LOVE that show!!!!!!
From Tom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)