Late Night Haiku IX

Regularly scheduled programming really should resume tomorrow.

XIII.
Frogs croak softly, softly.
Day has passed and night is here,
The day fades away.

XXIV.
Decisions to make,
Should not always wait fore're
But what should I do?

XXV.
Though the crickets chirp,
The silence is deafening,
And time rolls onward.

Reorganization

I've been busy reorganizing my bedroom/study area. I've added some new book cases, a new desk to setup a spare computer or two on and a new file cabinet; I've also just generally tried to straighten everything. That last part isn't quite done yet. But that's why I've been so scarce the past few days. Expect my return soon. Oh, and I have my Photo Quest ready… in fact, I even redid part of it! Hopefully, more will be said on that, tomorrow.

Duet

The story revolves around a man named Marritza (Harris Yulin), a file clerk who ended up working under the leader of a forced labor camp the Cardassians were running while occupying Bajor. He arrives on Deep Space Nine in need of medical assistance for a rare disease that only those present at that camp are inflicted with (caused by a mining accident). Station second officer Major Kira thinks that the ill person in sickbay must be a Bajoran who had been in the mines. Instead she finds a Cardassian, so she immediately presumes guilt and orders his arrest.

Kira struggles with a serious issue: is she interested in justice or merely vengeance against any Cardassian? She tries to wrap her desires in a cloak of justice, but his prodding, as well as the council of others leads her to admit what she wants: revenge. She wants Marritza to be a terrible war criminal, not a file clerk.

When trying to confirm the identity of Marritza, they find he instead looks like a photo of the cruel leader of the labor camp, not the file clerk he claims to be. When presented with the evidence, he concedes that and glories in the atrocities committed, providing details of how much he enjoyed killing innocent Bajorans. He sees Bajorans as insignificant “scum,” the killing of whom were a bonus to the occupation that mostly served to provide Cardassia with material resources its empire needed. Kira is tortured by the horrid things that spew out of the man's mouth, but she is thrilled with the idea of the evil head of the camp being executed.

But then there is a twist: the Cardassian government informs the station that the man they now believe Marritza to be died six years prior and, further more, it becomes clear that the said leader was not present on Bajor at the time of the mining accident. This information, combined with other bits that they gather, reveals a strange picture: the man they are holding wanted to be caught. In fact, he cosmetically altered himself to look like the camp leader and then arranged for an “emergency medical stop” at the Bajoran owned station — a strange thing for a Cardassian to do. The man is not the leader, but Marritza the file clerk after all.

When confronted with this, the man being held bursts out in even more atrocious descriptions of the acts he claims to have committed; claiming it is insane to compare him to that mere “bug” Marritza. He tries to go on, but he comes apart describing how, first still describing Marritza in third person, then finally switching to first person, he would cower by his bed trying to cover his ears to shield himself from the screams of the prisoners in the camp. He was a coward too afraid to stop the crimes his people were committing. He has come in hopes of receiving the trial his former boss should have, to force the details out and make his people finally admit their guilt; in other words, he has essentially sought to offer himself as a vicarious substitute for his people in hopes of righting the wrongs he was too scared to stop before.

Kira, recognizing the man as the epitome of honor, rather than a war criminal, releases her former nemesis, instead of furthering the prosecution against him, and makes arrangements for him to return to his home planet safely. Unfortunately, this man, who was seeking to heal the wounds between the Cardassians and Bajorans, is fatally stabbed by a Bajoran who runs up behind Kira and Marritza. The major, aghast, cries out to the murderer, who claims he was justified by the fact that Marritza was a Cardassian. “That is not enough,” Kira responds as she holds the now lifeless body of Marritza and the camera pans out to end the episode. The major has come to see that her former hatred and lust for vengeance was empty and destructive, but unfortunately the other Bajoran did not.

The tragic ending, like I said, is classical. The hero, Marritza, is killed unjustly in the midst of his attempts to right the wrongs he was not responsible for. The acting — especially Yulin's powerful enactment of Marritza — and well-written dialogue serve to bring this ever-present issue into a very dramatic height that is dynamic and touching. How often do we let our own need to be avenged, under the cloak of justice, blind us from seeing the innocent people that end up being the victims of a new set of crimes — those that we end up perpetrating?

Duet is an appropriate name, as one finds oneself in the constant dance between mercy and vengeance, between overwhelming guilt and ignorant self-righteousness. The tragic reminds us of how close we could come to being on either side of the situation.

Catharsis.

Michael Makes a Move

I mentioned Christopher's blog-in-exile (BiE) yesterday; another one of my blogging buddies from Cranium Leakage, Michael Morgan, has also started a BiE, which you can find here. Tell 'im Tim sent ya, so I get my referral fees.

Psssst: Christopher, you said you were paying me $20 per person referred, right?

Late Night Haiku VIII

XX.
A cricket chirps soft,
The wind blows slowly forward,
Summer almost past.

XXI.
A lonely feeling,
Wishing to hear your voice now,
Instead, cicadas.

XXII.
Sleep conquers my eyes,
I shall drift off again soon,
Morning comes quickly.

What the Freak!?!?!

It seems the Cranium Leakage gang is having a bit of trouble at the moment. I talked to Christopher, and he pointed me to a Spare Change entry he posted, which links to his blog in exile, What the Freak. I'm hoping this gets resolved quickly for them.

Palladium Not in Mac Dev Kits

A source tipped me off that Apple is not including TPM/TCPA/Palladium modules in their dev kits, contrary to earlier reports. I know this is a reliable source, so this looks like it might trump the other reports that have come from questionable parts of the web. Read more here at OfB.

Mighty Mouse Saves the Day?

Apple announced their new Mighty Mouse today. It looks pretty innovative in design — certainly, it is not just a “me too” entry from Apple. The time for a multi-button mouse from Cupertino is finally here, which is not a moment too soon, in my estimation. Ideally, Apple will soon make the Mighty Mouse standard equipment and offer a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse as its premium mouse.

I have not actually tried the Mighty Mouse yet, but I am considering buy a new mouse, so if they offer a Bluetooth one before I buy something else, I may seriously consider it. I especially like the Mighty Mouse's innovative scroll ball, which makes more sense than the tilting wheel method of offering horizontal scrolling on a wheel mouse. It would have been better with two or three side buttons, or perhaps a way to squeeze it different amounts to activate different functions, but at least it has enough buttons to run Dashboard and Expose.

Price wise, it is a bit steep at $49 for a corded mouse with a standard optical system, but that comes with the territory. Anyone reading this planning to buy a Mighty Mouse? It works with Windows as a standard HID device, so I'm presuming it will work on GNU/Linux as well.

New Challenge Round Starts with the Music Man

Well, Christopher was right, it was indeed Meredith Willson's the Music Man that we went to see yesterday. Kevin, being the ever resourceful fellow that he is, also did a good job confirming this guess. I think since I read my Challenge small print from last fall and found that the game was suppose to end by the beginning of June, I'll start the counter over. I guess I made it too hard, since no one managed to win, despite a lot of really worthy efforts. Both Christopher and Kevin now have 15 asisaid-2k5 points (I'll keep “lifetime” tallies as well, but for this round, we'll start from scratch).

This was my second time seeing the Music Man within about a year, the last time being at the Muny at the end of July 2004. I'll talk more about the reprise in a post in a few days, along with my promised Mame review.

Just so that you know I wasn't in a strange mood, let me take out the hints from my last post and identify them:

• Not even a copy of Captain Billy’s Wizbang could have beaten it! The publication Captain Billy's Wizbang is one of the things Prof. Hill points to as an indication of child in the grips of the kind of trouble that arrives with a pool table. He references it in the song “Ya Got Trouble.” Oh, ya got trouble. Terrible, terrible trouble!
• No there where no white knights in the play or angels with wings. “A Lancelot” or an angels with wings are what Marian Paroo says she is not looking for in her white knight in the song “My White Knight.” Trivia fact: My White Knight was replaced by “Being in Love” in the 1962 movie version of the musical.
• The great Creatore or John Philips Sousa. Both of these musical savants appeared, among other greats, in the same town, on the same day, when 76 trombones led the big parade. At least that's what Harold Hill says happens in the segue from “Ya Got Trouble (Reprise)” into “76 Trombones.”
• ”I don’t believe I caught the name of the play.” I don’t believe I dropped it. One of the salesmen immediately after the opening song (“Rock Island”) asks Hill for his name after the good “professor” says he'll have to try selling in Iowa sometime (another salesman has just been discussing how bad Hill is, how he'd like to get his hands on him, but how Hill would never bother coming someplace as hard to sell at as Iowa). When one man says “I don't believe I caught your name,” Hill replies “I don't believe I dropped it,” as he reveals his suitcase, with his name on it, to the audience.

What Else? The Piper Pays Him!

Well, this summer has been a summer of musicals. What could be better than that? Today, I saw what was likely the last musical of the season. My great aunt celebrated her 94th birthday this week, and so my parents and myself went with her to a musical at the community college as something different to give her. I think she liked that a lot more than anything else we could have given her (not even a copy of Captain Billy's Wizbang could have beaten it!).

There was almost trouble in St. Charles city, though. Being a small time event, we did not have tickets ahead of time. When we arrived this afternoon, the theater was sold out. Fortunately, we stuck around to get a “waiting list” number, and ended up with some really nice seats. My dad and myself took two seats in the third row, while my aunt and mother took front row seats. The cost for four people? A mere $14.

No there where no white knights in the play or angels with wings, but we enjoyed an amazing performance given the price and setting. The scenery was not anything spectacular, but was “good enough.” The performers all gave a five star performance; in fact, I think there were less mistakes in this small time play than in the Muny version of Mame (although the heat on last Monday may have been the cause for that!). The orchestra might not have been as good as the ones at a more professional production (or ones that would have been conducted by the great Creatore or John Philips Sousa), but they did an almost flawless job on all but the most difficult numbers.

Now, I know what you are saying: “I don't believe I caught the name of the play.” I don't believe I dropped it. 15 Challenge points for the person who can guess what the play was without using Google (or another general purpose search engine).