May 24, 2013
Dear Everyone:
Last night’s ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators)
meeting was a bit sparse.
Only six people showed up, all of them female.
Although the field of
Records Management does tend to be “heavily
represented” by women, at least a few guys usually make an appearance,
including the Chapter President.
But apparently they all had more important things to do this
time. In addition, the
Speaker was late.
So we went ahead and started dinner and had ourselves a lovely little
“hen party”. In fact, we
were having a lively, and very interesting, discussion (also known as
“dishing”) regarding the relative merits of a particular
Document
Management system and
SharePoint when the Speaker actually made her
appearance (traffic in the
San Francisco financial district had held her
up.)
And talked for well over an hour about “Data Classification and Privacy
Issues in Your RIM Program”.
Data Privacy is a “hot topic” these days.
That’s partly because businesses that demanded your personal
information for years made themselves a lot of money by selling that
information to other businesses.
They also had a tendency to “lose” the information with a fairly
distressing regularity until most states and various national government
agencies dropped the hammer on them.
This is why you receive envelopes in the mail with teeny, tiny
print informing you of the business’s “concern” about your privacy and
what they do with your information, couched in terms no one could
possibly comprehend. In
other words, they’re still making money off your information one way or
another. Still, she was very
well informed on the subject.
In other news…
“Jeannie” and I went to see
Star
Trek: Into Darkness last
weekend. We made a point of
not seeing the 3D version.
This is a classic case of just because you
can do something doesn’t mean you
should do it. The 3D
part, I mean.
When Gene Roddenberry first proposed his “Wagon
Train to the Stars” in the mid-1960s, he meant to use the original
Star Trek (aka Trek Classic)
as a “Trojan Horse” to introduce social commentary into his stories.
Initially, the Second-in-Command was a woman, a concept
immediately shot down by both the network and the “focus groups” who
watched the original pilot.
In his second attempt, Roddenberry’s S-in-C was decidedly male, although
nominally non-white (i.e., green.)
But he managed to slip in a Command-level Officer who was both
female and African American and who, incidentally, looked great in a
miniskirt. Later, he added
an Asian and a Russian.
Not all the stories were meant to broach subjects like racial and sexual
inequalities; although part of the fun was trying to figure out what
Roddenberry was “really saying”.
Some of them were just good stories.
Others, especially in the last season, were pathetic.
And poor ratings ultimately took the show out.
But not before it reached the “golden number” of three full
seasons, the requisite for syndication.
It was in syndication that things took off, prompting the studio, now
owned by Paramount, to launch additional series and many, many movies,
novelizations, etc. all of which made enough money to justify even more.
But that was over 40 years ago.
The original (never say “old”) actors are no longer “available”.
And movies are, frankly, made for the young (and young at heart.)
So the producers came up with a gimmick that let them follow the
original characters with new (don’t call them “younger”) actors.
And, in the meantime, they cheerfully jettisoned Roddenberry’s
initial “Trojan Horse” concept in favor of razzle-dazzle special effects
and slam-bang fisticuffs.
After all, there is a
dark-skinned family living in the
White House now.
Can women’s equality be (very) far behind?
They even managed to resurrect a “favorite”
villain yet again.
So, if you’re not a hard-core “Trekkie”, you can still enjoy all
the youngsters and their fabulous toys.
It’s a good way to spend a hot afternoon in the air-conditioned
dark; with popcorn, of course.
Love, as always,
Pete
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