From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se
Subject: blakes7-d Digest V00 #192
X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se
X-Mailing-List: <blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se> archive/volume00/192
Precedence: list
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------"
To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se
Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se

------------------------------

Content-Type: text/plain

blakes7-d Digest				Volume 00 : Issue 192

Today's Topics:
	 [B7L] Jenna
	 [B7L] Re:  Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution
	 Re: [B7L] Re: Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
	 Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
	 Re: [B7L] After the revolution - The power of delta's
	 Re: [B7L] 
	 Re: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
	 Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
	 Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
	 Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
	 Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution
	 [B7L] Roman religion
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution
	 Re: [B7L] 
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution
	 Re: [B7L] Re:  Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
	 Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
	 Re: [B7L] Nation vs Boucher
	 Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
	 Re: [B7L] Mitigation of crimes
	 Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
	 Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
	 Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
	 Re: [B7L] Jenna
	 Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 20:49:30 PDT
From: "Sally Manton" <smanton@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] Jenna
Message-ID: <20000706034930.77193.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

Jurgen wrote:
<There was something about the review of 'Trial' by Jim Smith that I didn't 
like, though. He wrote that Sally Knyvette didn't appear to give a 
performance at all. Does anybody else on this list think so?>

Sally wasn't that bad IMHO, but had two strikes against her - her own 
inexperience, and the fact that the three major male characters rapidly took 
over writer and viewer interest. Consequently, Jenna didn't get the 
character development that the first episodes promised (I think she's 
terrific in her first scenes of Spacefall), *nor* the good lines, and 
suffered badly from the 'wimp the women' syndrome. By the time she became 
more experienced, she'd been sidelined by Avon
and Vila.

She has some good moments; she's very good in the bits with Blake and Avon 
in Cygnus Alpha, she and Cally are great working together at the end of 
Hostage, and I think she's wonderful in the scenes with Vila in Star One. 
But in the more dramatic bits she falters and gets a little wooden or 
overdone (I wince a bit every time she asks Blake something like " What is 
it, Blake? What's going on?", but I defy Sarah Siddons to make these cliches 
sound natural.) The lightly-touched 'romantic' interest between Jenna and 
Blake doesn't work at all either, because of the lack of chemistry 
(especially when compared to Blake and Avon).

Re Gambit - it's is a Bob Holmes episode, of course, and he made it almost 
impossible for any woman (except Servalan, whom I truly think he saw as a 
rather more decorative Pantomine Dame anyway) to shine. The scene with Jenna 
and Cally *is* embarrassing, but at least partly because it's plain badly 
written. Same with the scenes in Killer with Blake.

Jenna's part in Trial is somewhat pedestrian - like Vila and Cally, she's 
essentially wallpaper. But her performance isn't bad (unlike Brian Croucher, 
who is great in some scenes and positively cringe-worthy in others <g>).


________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 21:54:34 -0700
From: "Sarah Thompson" <sthompson162@mindspring.com>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re:  Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
Message-ID: <000001bfe709$bc1b7060$bedb8ad1@y1i7s9>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm catching up on the last couple of weeks of e-mail all at once, after
being away for a while.

Kathryn, I've read =Avalanche Soldier= and it is not nightmarish in the way
that the series about the torturer is.  The title character is a soldier in
a kind of elite Alpine corps, fighting a religious war.  Then she meets the
leader of the other side and experiences a conversion, which of course
causes all kinds of conflicts.  Oddly enough, I personally found the book a
little boring, as did the =Locus= reviewer, who said something to the effect
that she was surprised to find religion less interesting than torture!  But
you might like it.

A week or more ago someone asked about PGP fan fiction in which Avon dies
and someone else, perhaps Vila, takes over as leader.  When I read the post
I immediately thought of a story along these lines (Avon does survive GP,
but not for long) that I think is outstanding:  "Links in the Chain," by
Michelle Moyer, in =Southern Seven= #10.  It also has a sequel, "Breaking
the Chain," in #12.  Vila is shown very plausibly, IMO, as becoming a fairly
ruthless sort of leader, because that is what is needed for them all to
survive.

Another PGP story in which Vila becomes the leader is the well-known fan
novel =Last Stand at the Edge of the World=, by Ann Wortham and Leah
Rosenthal, continued in =Shadow at the Edge=.  Here Avon is still alive, but
so traumatized that he is barely functional, and so Vila must take over.

Una, congratulations on the well-deserved success of your Q study
presentation.  The question of Nation vs. Boucher should be an interesting
one to study.  Personally, I think that "Rumours of Death" and its reception
have much to do with this matter.  I seem to recall having read somewhere
that ratings were shaky for the third series until RoD, when the popularity
of the show in general and Avon in particular suddenly shot up.  OTOH, we
see both here and on the Other List that there are also people who strongly
dislike the ep, for various reasons.  Does that mean that they are in
general Nation fans as opposed to Boucher fans?  Or is there no particular
relationship?

On Vila as Cheerful Cockney-- well, this borders on being a Freedom City
comment, but there is also the strong hint in "City" that he's quite the
stud.  None of the other male characters get such a show of enthusiasm from
their partners, at least not on screen.

Sarah T.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:03:54 +0100
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "b7" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution
Message-ID: <000901bfe718$7a121520$e535fea9@neilfaulkner>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

From: Hellen Paskaleva <hellen_pas@hotmail.com>

> Me:
> >I do not think this is Blake's job - to "put" or remove governing bodies.
> >The very idea of the change is to let the planets and their people to
make
> >*their* choice who will rule them. IMO.
>
> Neil:
> <And those supporting Blake would point to the planets where it all worked
> out all right, and those against him would point to those where it all
went
> horribly wrong.>
>
> Me, again:
> Well, if continue the resemblance with the Balkan countries, he still has
> pretty good odds, here. Eight countries are "working all right" versus
one -
> Serbia - which doesn't.

Maybe, though the picture would have seemed a lot less rosy not so many
years ago.  The fragmentation of the Soviet Union has also, Georgia and
Chechnya apart, proceeded fairly peacefully.  Things are clearly less than
idyllic in some of those new republics, but overall it hasn't worked out too
bad.

If we look at post-colonial Africa, though, we can see another possible
model for a post-Federation galaxy.  In the last four decades there have
been quite a lot of dictatorships, with particularly bloody ones in Zaire,
Uganda and the Central African Republic/Empire.  There have been civil wars
in Angola (ongoing since 1975), Mozambique, Congo (before and after Mobutu),
Sudan, Burundi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Rhodesia (as it then was), and Chad,
as well as numerous coups d'etat (at least six in Benin alone).  There have
also been wars between Ethiopia and Somalia/Eritrea, and military
intervention by Nigeria in Sierra Leone, Senegal in Gambia, Tanzania in
Uganda and something like six other African countries in Congo today.  A sad
litany, though not of course representative of the entire continent - some
of the emergent nations have remained relatively stable and done quite well
for themselves.

It might be argued that Africa, with its relatively underdeveloped
infrastructure and unevenly distributed population, represents a better
model for a galaxy stripped of Federation rule than the tightly packed
Balkan states.  It's true that more than one colonial power was involved
(principally Britain, France and Portugal), and that states gained their
independence over a period of decades.  But if we were to consider Europe as
representing the Federation (ironic, given that Europe is in the process of
becoming a federation), and imagine European rule disappearing overnight,
the African experience would probably have been even more chaotic and
miserable than it has been.

Neil

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 23:52:53 PDT
From: "Sally Manton" <smanton@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
Message-ID: <20000706065253.33168.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

Sarah wrote:

<OTOH, we see both here and on the Other List that there are also people who 
strongly dislike the ep, for various reasons.  Does that mean that they are 
in general Nation fans as opposed to Boucher fans?  Or is there no 
particular relationship?>

Going over my app 8-9 favourite episodes, I think the two break about even 
as *credited* authors (and I don't think anyone else gets a lookin, not even 
Robert Holmes), but of course Boucher had an awful lot to do with the 
rewriting (IMHO) of those that Nation wrote. OTOH, since my favourite 
seasons are second, then first, where Nation had more influence over the 
basic plots than later ...

I'd say I'm a fan of both, and both were *absolutely* necessary to the whole 
(after all, Chris had a wonderful basis to work with, supplied by Terry).



________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 08:28:24 +0100
From: "Una McCormack" <una@q-research.connectfree.co.uk>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
Message-ID: <072501bff609$ed729030$0d01a8c0@codex>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Alison wrote:

> In a way 'there is nothing to gain' is a one-phrase summary of
conservatism.

Pshaw! :)  How about 'there is plenty to lose'?



> >Please correct me if I am wrong, but all of these examples are examples
of
> >change being driven by the "privileged grades", albeit for the benefit of
> >the "lower grades".
>
> Now I do disagree with you on that. For example 'votes for women' wasn't
an
> idea invented by men (though a lot of good men supported it),

Although a radical feminist perspective might argue that that type of
liberal feminism just reinforces patriarchy.



> God, this is getting off topic. Right. IMHO real change comes from process
> not form. If Blake really wanted to subvert the federation he would have
to
> stop being an alpha benefactor and empower the workers to lead their own
> revolt. Bit of an odd TV show though.

The Comic Strip presents 'Blake!' with Peter Richardson playing Robert
DeNiro playing Blake, Robbie Coltrane playing Al Pacino playing Avon, Ade
Edmondson playing Steve Buscemi playing Vila, Jennifer Saunders playing
Meryl Streep playing Jenna, and Dawn French playing Kathleen Turner playing
Servalan. It'd be a winner.


Una

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:17:05 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Lysator" <Blakes7@lysator.liu.se>, "Murray" <mjsmith@tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution
Message-ID: <006401bfe71c$b1cf0be0$4b1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> Is Cygnus Alpha part of the Federation at all? It appears to be just a
> place where the Federation dump people,

Maybe this is unsupported, but I got the impression that it was sort of like
eighteenth-century Australia; part of the Federation, but in such an early
stage of colonization that they don't worry too much about it.

> If Cygnus Alpha is not a full part of the Federation, this can be used to
> explain any deviation from the latter's religious prohibition policy.

Re the religious prohibition policy: perhaps such a mandate was just in
practice too difficult to police, and so pockets of religious feeling
continued to exist on the periphery.

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:22:39 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>, "Ika" <blake@gaudaprime.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
Message-ID: <006701bfe71c$b3ce3740$4b1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Ika,

> Does this expectation of death let him off the hook, though?

Not morally, but it does explain why he might be acting without too much
thought for the long-term future; he doesn't expect to be around to have to
sort it out. Might also explain somewhat extreme gestures like the Moondisk
business-- he would just be acting as he has opportunities, knowing that
there likely won't be a second chance.

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:19:47 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Andrew Ellis" <Andrew.D.Ellis@btinternet.com>, <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] After the revolution - The power of delta's
Message-ID: <006601bfe71c$b31ebd60$4b1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Ellis <Andrew.D.Ellis@btinternet.com>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 10:17 PM
Subject: [B7L] After the revolution - The power of delta's


> >
> Iain,
>
> Another thing that is bugging me, is our use of the term "lower grades"
when
> referring to IRL comparisons.

I was quoting the *series*-- IIRC there doesn't seem to be a polite way of
referring to said grades-- no one referrs to the "working grades" or
anything.

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:18:05 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Lysator" <Blakes7@lysator.liu.se>, "Murray" <mjsmith@tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: [B7L] 
Message-ID: <006501bfe71c$b2661bc0$4b1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Me:

> >Mildly debatable-- the British, remember, had an active policy of
> >encouraging missionary activity, and doing things like, erm, making
> >alterations to Hindu religious erotic art and making Polynesian women
wear
> >blouses, etc.

Murray:

> Religious toleration is not incompatible with a belief in a particular
> faith, as long as there is no attempt to forcibly convert people to that
> faith. Regarding the British Empire, while there were established
Christian
> Churches in Britain and Ireland, there was no established church in the
> Empire.

Good point, and well taken--IIRC the Romans also had a policy of "pushing"
their gods while tolerating others'. 

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:32:18 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>, "Ika" <blake@gaudaprime.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
Message-ID: <006801bfe71c$b46e6ee0$4b1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Ika,

> I'm not great on this either, but I think the modern concept of "race" was
> invented around the time of the Enlightenment and European colonial
expansion
> into America, Asia, Africa etc. Roman ideas of "race" didn't posit the
kind of
> absolute difference between races that allows ideology to say that a
"race"

In its modern form yes, although similar sorts of social classification
based on physiognomy crop up elsewhere (not necc. of same type though; the
Egyptians divided the world into "white," "red" and "black" people). The
question is not the classification itself but whether value judgements are
affixed; there's an interesting article by Stephen Jay Gould pointing out
that the practice of measuring and typologising skulls actually started with
an *artist,* who was doing so only to do a painting of the Adoration of the
Magi. The modern concept of "race" is interestingly variable, too; UK and
American people don't mean the same thing by "Asian," and "Hispanic" seems
to only be a "racial" category in the Americas.

> whether Cleopatra was "black"

As she was a member of a Greek royal family, the Ptolemeys, I'd doubt it.

> the Romans, so they didn't record it one way or the other.)

"Nationality" seems to have meant something to them though.

> Genocide probably
> depends on the modern notion of race (or species, in SF).

True!

>(Which is interesting
> in terms of the way Dayna's being black is almost always ignored in B7,
but

Which is one of the things I find interesting. I found an old B7 Magazine
once which contained a story in which someone makes a mildly racist remark
about Dayna, and it really jarred cos I'd never seen that in the series.
Mind you, it's also interesting that we don't actually see many other black
people-- off the top of my head, the only others I can recall are that pair
in "Warlord" (please correct me people).

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 11:08:32 +0200
From: Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000706110304.00a6fe90@pop3.wish.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 22:54 5-7-00, sowtermj wrote:
>Can anyone tell me how to stop getting this newsgroup.
>Many regards Mark

We've been having a lot of these lately, haven't we? IIRC, subscribing to 
this mailing list is automatic, you don't first get a message asking you to 
confirm that you want to be subscribed. Wouldn't it be a good idea to start 
doing this? It would at least stop people from subscribing others as some 
sort of stupid prank.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to tell our esteemed list father how to run his 
list, but these unsubscribe thingies are starting to bug me.

Jacqueline

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 11:02:40 +0200
From: Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000706104115.00a704d0@pop3.wish.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 09:28 25-7-00, Una McCormack wrote:

Alison:
> > Now I do disagree with you on that. For example 'votes for women' wasn't
>an
> > idea invented by men (though a lot of good men supported it),
>
>Although a radical feminist perspective might argue that that type of
>liberal feminism just reinforces patriarchy.

This brought back the memory of an interview I read a long time ago with 
some guy who was responsible for "women's affairs" or "woman's 
emancipation" or whatever they called it. In any case, he was supposed to 
do research on how women were being discriminated against and give advice 
to the government on how to get rid of whatever inequalities he found. 
During this interview he claimed that he got a lot more done  when the 
bloody women weren't interfering with his work....

Alison:
> > God, this is getting off topic. Right. IMHO real change comes from process
> > not form. If Blake really wanted to subvert the federation he would have to
> > stop being an alpha benefactor and empower the workers to lead their own
> > revolt.

That's a bit one sided. The "workers" in this case (how did this get in 
here? It's no better than "lower grades") are everyone who are being 
oppressed by the Federation. And IIRC, that's everyone who doesn't shut up 
and support the status quo. Blake never states that he's fighting for "the 
lower grades".  He's fighting so that "the honest man" can think and speak 
freely. And as Iain's example so clearly proved, those can be found all 
through society. Anybody remember a docks worker called Lech Walesa? Saying 
Blake isn't fit to lead a revolt because of his social status is pretty 
much the same as saying Servalan isn't fit to lead the Federation because 
she's a woman. And with the notable exception of Jarvik (who deserved 
everything he got and a lot more. Hate, hate, hate that boorish SOB) I 
don't think anyone would dare to say that to her face.

> > Bit of an odd TV show though.
>
>The Comic Strip presents 'Blake!' with Peter Richardson playing Robert
>DeNiro playing Blake, Robbie Coltrane playing Al Pacino playing Avon, Ade
>Edmondson playing Steve Buscemi playing Vila, Jennifer Saunders playing
>Meryl Streep playing Jenna, and Dawn French playing Kathleen Turner playing
>Servalan. It'd be a winner.

For shame, Una! Do you have any idea how many innocent keyboards you've 
just ruined?

Jacqueline

------------------------------

Date: 06 Jul 2000 12:21:52 +0200
From: Calle Dybedahl <calle@lysator.liu.se>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
Message-ID: <86lmzfsgn3.fsf@tezcatlipoca.algonet.se>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

>>>>> "Jacqueline" == Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net> writes:

> We've been having a lot of these lately, haven't we?

For values of "lately" approximately equal to "the past five years", yes.

> IIRC, subscribing to this mailing list is automatic, you don't first
> get a message asking you to confirm that you want to be subscribed.
> Wouldn't it be a good idea to start doing this?

Yes, it would. But doing so would require a change of listbot, so it's
not entirely trivial to do. I've been looking at it for a while.

-- 
 Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-177 52 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se
  "Such a pretty day for a bloodbath." -- Callisto, "Xena: Warrior Princess"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:26:18 +0100 (BST)
From: Iain Coleman <ijc@bsfiles.nerc-bas.ac.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.96.1000706112508.23093A-100000@bsauasc>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Alison Page wrote:

> God, this is getting off topic. Right. IMHO real change comes from process
> not form. If Blake really wanted to subvert the federation he would have to
> stop being an alpha benefactor and empower the workers to lead their own
> revolt. Bit of an odd TV show though.

In a way, isn't that what he was doing? Destroying the apparatus of
repression, so that the mass population could be free do things their own
way?

Iain

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:27:38 PDT
From: "Sally Manton" <smanton@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
Message-ID: <20000706112738.8924.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

After I wrote:
<It's totally without canonical or any other evidence, but I'm convinced 
that Blake did not expect to survive the Federation's downfall.>

Ika asked:
<Does this expectation of death let him off the hook, though?>

It does mean he's probably all too well aware that what *he* wants to come 
afterwards will not matter, since he won't be there to influence it. 
Presumably that will be decided by those among the rebels who do survive. 
Kasabi (then Kasabis' successor) etc. After all, he may be arrogant and 
distinctly wilful at the best of times, but he's not insanely so ... once 
he's dead, that's *it*.

Note, I don't say Blake *wants* to die, I don't think he has a death-wish 
(not even on GP, where he's rather disenchanted with living). Just that he's 
looked at his chances of survival and accepted that they're somewhat lower 
than of of winning the Intra-Galactic Lottery without a ticket.

But as I said, this is just my Utterly Firm Conviction. I've no proof at 
all.
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 21:00:56 +1000
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
Message-ID: <20000706210056.C4837@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Wed, Jul 05, 2000 at 09:38:09PM +0000, Ika wrote:
> 
> And in Rome - Nero burned a load of indigenous Christians because
> they started the Great Fire of Rome (Though I should imagine none of
> them were Roman citizens, however. But there was one elite Roman
> citizen woman who was sentenced to death by her family for
> converting to Judaism, around the same time - first century CE
> anyway. Sorry, my dates are terrible.)
> 
> Moral: Religious tolerance is rarer than you might think in empires
> of any sort.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by religious tolerance.  My
understanding (which I grant isn't much) of the religious scene of the
Roman empire at that time was that basically everyone was
polytheistic - people didn't much care which particular god or gods
anyone worshipped, but nobody disbelieved in any of them.  A sort of
attitude of "my god is okay, and your god is okay too".  To actually
*not* believe in any of the gods was unheard of.  The Jews (and the
Christians) were technically considered atheists because they
considered all the other gods to be false.

Um, I had a point here, but I've forgotten what it was.

I guess maybe, that religious tolerance only exists on the level of
what that culture considers acceptable.  The "meta-religion", you
might say.  I mean, I wonder what the Roman empire would have made of
Bhuddism?

"What god do you worship?"
"We are all god."
"Sorry, I didn't catch the name.  Weareallgod, that's a new one on me."

(-8

Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Methos: I was at the Colosseum in Rome, 93 A.D., I saw Christians
	facing the lions. Some of them looked almost happy to die for
        their faith.
Duncan: Is there a point to this story, or are we just strolling down
        memory lane here?
Methos: That afterwards the only ones looking happy were the lions.
		 (Highlander: Finale Part 2)
-- 
 _--_|\	    | Kathryn Andersen		<kat@foobox.net>
/      \    | 		http://www.foobox.net/~kat
\_.--.*/    | 		http://jove.prohosting.com/~rubykat
      v	    | #include "standard/disclaimer.h"
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha!  |	-> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 15:04:21 +0200
From: Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000706150312.00a798c0@pop3.wish.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

In response to my suggestion for a change to the listbot, Calle Dybedahl wrote:
>   "Such a pretty day for a bloodbath." -- Callisto, "Xena: Warrior Princess"

<gulp>

Jacqueline

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 21:08:31 +1000
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution
Message-ID: <20000706210831.D4837@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Thu, Jul 06, 2000 at 08:17:05AM +0100, Nyder wrote:
> 
> > Is Cygnus Alpha part of the Federation at all? It appears to be just a
> > place where the Federation dump people,
> 
> Maybe this is unsupported, but I got the impression that it was sort of like
> eighteenth-century Australia; part of the Federation, but in such an early
> stage of colonization that they don't worry too much about it.
 
> > If Cygnus Alpha is not a full part of the Federation, this can be used to
> > explain any deviation from the latter's religious prohibition policy.
> 
> Re the religious prohibition policy: perhaps such a mandate was just in
> practice too difficult to police, and so pockets of religious feeling
> continued to exist on the periphery.

I would have thought that penal colonists would be considered
non-persons, yeah, not worth bothering with, *certainly* not worth
policing.  Mind you, it makes one wonder why they bothered shipping
them out at all, it would have been cheaper just to execute them.

I'm sure that in the Federation proper, certainly in the Inner Worlds,
religious prohibition would have been in full force, along with the
grading system and the slavery system.  Where the Federation had
police, they would enforce their laws, including the religious ones.

After all, if the Federation believes, as Servalan said, that "hope is
very dangerous", then I would think that the anti-religion laws would
certainly be enforced, considering that religion is one of those
things which grants people hope in illogical proportions.

Which is, of course, one reason, probably, why the religion got
started on Cygnus Alpha - the penal colonists needed hope.

Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Soolin:  His pulse is very weak.
  Avon:  Well that should go very nicely with the rest of him.
            				(Blake's 7: Sand [D9])
-- 
 _--_|\	    | Kathryn Andersen		<kat@foobox.net>
/      \    | 		http://www.foobox.net/~kat
\_.--.*/    | 		http://jove.prohosting.com/~rubykat
      v	    | #include "standard/disclaimer.h"
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha!  |	-> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 14:28:37 +0100 
From: Alison Page <alison_page@becta.org.uk>
To: "'blakes7@lysator.liu.se'" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Roman religion
Message-ID: <21B0197931E1D211A26E0008C79F6C4AB0C682@BRAMLEY>
Content-Type: text/plain

Kathryn
>I mean, I wonder what the Roman empire would have made of Bhuddism? "What
god do you worship?" "We are all god." "Sorry, I didn't catch the name.
>Weareallgod, that's a new one on me." 

blarp - we are now entering my specialist subject area (read current hobby
horse that has taken over from all the other hobby horses I have inflicted
on this list over the years)

I just opened Marcus Aurelius at a random point (book VI, point 38-40)
and...

'he who sees what is now has seen all things... for all things are one kin
and of one kind.. meditate often upon the bond of all in the Universe and
their mutual relationship, for all things are woven together and all people
because of this are dear to each other, for we depend upon each other
because of our common spirit and the unification of matter.'

'A tool made by a man is made to complete the work for which it is
fashioned... and in this case the maker is outside the tool... but of the
things which abide in nature the power which makes them is within and abides
within them. You must accordingly revere it the more, and believe that if
you are and continue according to the will of the Universe, you have all
things in your mind. And in like manner all things are within the mind of
the Universe, that is the mind of the All.'

Educated Roman's were generally stoics, who did in fact believe that we are
all god, and should protect and care for each other as such. many people
feel stoicism was in fact influenced by Buddhism.

Alison

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 14:48:01 +0100
From: Una McCormack <una@q-research.connectfree.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution
Message-ID: <39648E11.F138191D@q-research.connectfree.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Jacqueline Thijsen wrote:

> >The Comic Strip presents 'Blake!' with Peter Richardson playing Robert
> >DeNiro playing Blake, Robbie Coltrane playing Al Pacino playing Avon, Ade
> >Edmondson playing Steve Buscemi playing Vila, Jennifer Saunders playing
> >Meryl Streep playing Jenna, and Dawn French playing Kathleen Turner playing
> >Servalan. It'd be a winner.
> 
> For shame, Una! Do you have any idea how many innocent keyboards you've
> just ruined?

<preens> I feel very proud.


Una

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 10:10:33 EDT
From: Tigerm1019@aol.com
To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] 
Message-ID: <79.6652bca.2695ed59@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

In a message dated 07/06/2000 2:39:34 AM Central Daylight Time, 
nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net writes:

> Good point, and well taken--IIRC the Romans also had a policy of "pushing"
>  their gods while tolerating others'. 

IIRC, they also had a habit of insisting that citizens and subjects worship 
Caesar and the Roman gods, in addition to their own, sort of a loyalty oath.  
This is how the Jews and the Christians got into trouble, because those 
religions expressly forbid worshipping other gods.  

Perhaps Federation citizens are encouraged to see the state as God, in that 
it is supposed to be the most important thing in their lives?  I believe 
that's how it worked in the Soviet Union.

Tiger M

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 10:18:02 -0400
From: "Dana Shilling" <dshilling@worldnet.att.net>
To: "b7" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
Message-ID: <011901bfe755$2052d8c0$04ac4e0c@dshilling>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Replying to Alison Page:
> Now I do disagree with you on that. For example 'votes for women' wasn't
an
> idea invented by men (though a lot of good men supported it),
But in a system where all legislators were men, it had to be *enacted*
by men.

> If Blake really wanted to subvert the federation he would have to
> stop being an alpha benefactor and empower the workers to lead their own
> revolt. Bit of an odd TV show though.
And don't forget who owns TV stations. As IF Stone said before the
Internet, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one."
-(Y)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 10:17:21 -0400
From: "Dana Shilling" <dshilling@worldnet.att.net>
To: "b7" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution (was 'Blake' and beyond)
Message-ID: <011801bfe755$1a22fc00$04ac4e0c@dshilling>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm no Comrade Neil nor was meant to be, but
in response to Ika:
>
> Does this expectation of death let him off the hook, though?
No--any activity implies having at least a contingency plan
for success!
>
>of course after the revolution the
> proletariat will decide and a whole new cultural/ideological milieu which
we
> cannot yet imagine will be ushered in,
BUt it will be ushered in by people who had significant exposure to
bourgeois consumer culture, so it will be heavily influenced by then-
prevailing conditions. And even though we don't know what kind of
paintings, sculptures, dances, films, TV shows, holocasts, etc., they will
create, we know that there'll have to be a rota for sharing rehearsal space
and allocating the broadcast schedule.

-(Y)
I'll be the one with the clipboard...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 15:53:41 +0100
From: Russ Massey <russ@wriding.demon.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution
Message-ID: <PvDnaCA11JZ5Ewnl@wriding.demon.co.uk>

In message <072501bff609$ed729030$0d01a8c0@codex>, Una
McCormack <una@q-research.connectfree.co.uk> writes
>
>The Comic Strip presents 'Blake!' with Peter Richardson playing Robert
>DeNiro playing Blake, Robbie Coltrane playing Al Pacino playing Avon, Ade
>Edmondson playing Steve Buscemi playing Vila, Jennifer Saunders playing
>Meryl Streep playing Jenna, and Dawn French playing Kathleen Turner 
>playing
>Servalan. It'd be a winner.
>
And Jane Horrocks playing Calista Flockheart playing Cally.
-- 
Russ Massey

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 15:49:23 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Sarah Thompson" <sthompson162@mindspring.com>, <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re:  Susan Matthews, PGP Vila, etc.
Message-ID: <000601bfe772$2dc90520$5a1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> On Vila as Cheerful Cockney-- well, this borders on being a Freedom City
> comment, but there is also the strong hint in "City" that he's quite the
> stud.  None of the other male characters get such a show of enthusiasm
from
> their partners, at least not on screen.
>

Likewise skirting the borders of Freedom City (and not stopping to flip
through the mags either) but remember one of the characteristics of the
Cheerful Cockney/humourous "lower" (sic, guys) class character is that s/he
is sensual and generally oversexed. This is a stereotype, actually, which
seems to get applied to most if not all oppressed groups, African-Americans
and homosexuals being the two that leap to mind first.

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:43:10 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Alison Page" <alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk>, <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L]After the revolution 
Message-ID: <000401bfe772$2b86b640$5a1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> God, this is getting off topic. Right. IMHO real change comes from process
> not form. If Blake really wanted to subvert the federation he would have
to
> stop being an alpha benefactor and empower the workers to lead their own
> revolt. Bit of an odd TV show though.

Might have been doable-- Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" takes that tack,
being about a young man of the privileged class in a future society who,
through falling in love with a member of the deprived class, learns about
their oppressed situation and, by the end of the film, is trying to build a
bridge between them and the privileged lot.

While it's rather lost in the cut version of the film which survives (the
original print being, ironically, lost in the bombing of Berlin), the film
clearly makes the point that neither class can exist without the other; the
deprived ones' attempt to build a better society by overthrowing the owners,
and the privileged ones' attempt to do the same by killing off the workers,
are equally doomed to failure.

Fiona

Fiona Moore
http://redrival.com/nyder/indexx.html
Resist the Host or your Oneness will be Absorbed

------------------------------

Date:   Thu, 6 Jul 2000 20:05:19 +0200
From: "Marian de Haan" <maya@multiweb.nl>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Nation vs Boucher
Message-ID: <006001bfe774$cc48aa00$2eed72c3@marian-de-haan.multiweb.nl>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

>Sarah wrote:
<OTOH, we see both here and on the Other List that there are also people who
strongly dislike the ep, for various reasons.  Does that mean that they are
in general Nation fans as opposed to Boucher fans?  Or is there no
particular relationship?>

Although Boucher is clearly the better as to dialogue and one liners, I
consider his plots generally weaker than those of Nation (although they've
both written good and bad stories IMO.)

Sally wrote:
> <snip>  but of course Boucher had an awful lot to do with the
rewriting (IMHO) of those that Nation wrote.<

And as script editor, Boucher probably did not have someone to edit *his*
scripts, which may account for their weaknesses.  It's always easier to see
the flaws in other people's work than in your own. :-)

Sally again:
>I'd say I'm a fan of both, and both were *absolutely* necessary to the
whole (after all, Chris had a wonderful basis to work with, supplied by
Terry).<

I absolutely agree, it's their combined effort (plus the perfect
casting)which makes B7 so unique and enjoyable.

Marian

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:10:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Wendy S. Penberriss" <penberriss@yahoo.com>
To: Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net>, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #188
Message-ID: <20000706181043.3141.qmail@web5202.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--- Jacqueline Thijsen <inquisitioner@wish.net> wrote:

> doing this? It would at least stop people from
> subscribing others as some 
> sort of stupid prank.

Now who would do a thing like that?

Wendy

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/

------------------------------

Date:   Thu, 6 Jul 2000 20:12:58 +0200
From: "Marian de Haan" <maya@multiweb.nl>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Mitigation of crimes
Message-ID: <006501bfe775$d2175e80$2eed72c3@marian-de-haan.multiweb.nl>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Fiona wrote:
>> > Avon - Hey, every theory has it's exceptions.
>> Actually, his reason for stealing was a desire for freedom.
>D'you think? I think it had more to do with the money, and, more to the
point, the thrill of committing a massive crime and getting away with it.
Avon seems the sort to enjoy the grand gesture.

I think his main motivation was that wealth would give him both independence
and safety (getting so rich that no-one could touch him).

Marian

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:24:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Wendy S. Penberriss" <penberriss@yahoo.com>
To: Jurgen van de Sanden <blakes7@hotmail.com>, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
Message-ID: <20000706182425.15120.qmail@web5204.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--- Jurgen van de Sanden <blakes7@hotmail.com> wrote:

> great job! Zenith is of 
> the same class as the latest Horizon magazines.

I never saw any of those. Anything to do with the fan
club mentioned in my Programme Guide?

> There was something about the review of 'Trial' by
> Jim Smith that I didn't 
> like, though. He wrote that Sally Knyvette didn't
> appear to give a 
> performance at all. Does anybody else on this list
> think so?

Yes. It takes doing to be upstaged by Cally, but she
manages it.

>It's not the 
> first time poor Sally is criticised of bad acting in
> a particular episode. 

Well, somebody's always going to come out badly;
people here weren't being too polite about Carol
Hawkins not too long ago.

<extensive description of J's movements snipped>

> Finally, I really enjoy the scene when she smiles at
> Avon because she's 
> beating him at the game (What's the name of the
> game?). This is Jenna at her 
> best, showing that she can beat Avon any time. :-)

I think you're reading too much into it. Fact is, she
doesn't have much to do in the story, so she doesn't
do much.

Wendy


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 08:16:39 +0100
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "b7" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
Message-ID: <000201bfe77b$eb8c5720$e535fea9@neilfaulkner>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

From: Jurgen van de Sanden <blakes7@hotmail.com>
> In Horizon 39 both Sally and Jan are criticised of overacting during the 
> scene of their faked fight together in 'Gambit'.

Surely that was Jenna and Cally overacting?

Neil

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 22:00:56 CEST
From: "Jurgen van de Sanden" <blakes7@hotmail.com>
To: N.Faulkner@tesco.net, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zenith & Sally Knyvette
Message-ID: <20000706200056.94275.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

>Surely that was Jenna and Cally overacting?
>
>Neil
>
Well, if I remember correctly it said "both actors"...

Jurgen
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 22:59:58 CEST
From: "Jurgen van de Sanden" <blakes7@hotmail.com>
To: smanton@hotmail.com, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Jenna
Message-ID: <20000706205958.5575.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

Sally,

I thought it was very interesting to read your comments about Sally's 
performance and the character of Jenna. What did you think of Jenna in 
'Bounty', 'Time Squad', 'Shadow' and 'The Keeper'?

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 22:00:52 +0100
From: "Nyder" <nyder@moore.britishlibrary.net>
To: "Kathryn Andersen" <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>,
        "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: After the revolution
Message-ID: <00fe01bfe78e$19ee8ea0$5a1086d4@stx.ox.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> I would have thought that penal colonists would be considered
> non-persons, yeah, not worth bothering with, *certainly* not worth
> policing.

If you send them out far enough, maybe.

> Mind you, it makes one wonder why they bothered shipping
> them out at all, it would have been cheaper just to execute them.

Possibly some kind of logic like with Australia: "Right, we've got this
country which is too wild for the more genteel sort of colonists, let's send
this lot out first. If some of them die, well, they were only criminals, and
if they survive, with any luck they'll have cleared enough land for the rest
of us."

Not terribly nice for the locals, I must say....

> I'm sure that in the Federation proper, certainly in the Inner Worlds,
> religious prohibition would have been in full force, along with the
> grading system and the slavery system.  Where the Federation had
> police, they would enforce their laws, including the religious ones.

As with any empire. The barbarians are usually the ones a few hundred miles
from Rome...

Fiona

--------------------------------
End of blakes7-d Digest V00 Issue #192
**************************************