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https://ew.com/tv/the-blacklist-season- … -shutdown/

THE BLACKLIST is going to complete its Season 7 finale with animation.

Will Bruce Timm be handling the Arrowverse shows next year?

It's humbling to be a lifelong fan of SLIDERS (but certainly not as devoted as Temporal Flux) and to re-read something by Temporal Flux that I read years ago -- and only now realize from TF's mastery of SLIDERS' tropes, platform, style and tone that I myself have *never* fully understood the show. DECLASSIFIED shows that it's the non-aggressive and highly contemplative social satire that makes SLIDERS so distinct and memorable. That featuring the sliders Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo does not automatically transform a story into a SLIDERS story. And how you can indeed have SLIDERS without *the* sliders by continuing the themes if not the plots and characters.

It's interesting to compare Seasons 4 - 5 of SLIDERS with DECLASSIFIED again and realize that the problem with those years is only partially the overstretched Bill Dial and Keith Damron scripts, but also a core conceptual problem. Temporal Flux once remarked that while Marc Scott Zicree was a brilliant screenwriter, he was too focused on the science fiction rather than the social commentary. Whether this is Zicree's doing or not, DECLASSIFIED shows that Seasons 4 - 5 demonstrate an overemphasis on technology and a underemphasis on sociology.

Just about every episode of Seasons 4 - 5 are consciously science fiction by playing up some form of advanced technology that did not exist or at least not to that degree in the real world: Kromagg war weapons, a deatomizing machine, virtual reality, slidewaves, cryogenics, psionic healing, energy weapons, VR, VR and VR again, human cloning, bubble universes, combining universes, nanites, AI, telepathic piloting, neural remapping, VR and other technovoodoo.

Keith Damron says that there was a deliberate effort to add science fiction aesthetics to every story by adding these technological elements, often into story pitches that didn't originally have them. Almost no story in Seasons 4 - 5 are designed to explore how people interact and live and what prejudices, stigmas and conventions exist on a social and personal level. The forceful use of these superficial sci-fi elements came at the expense of SLIDERS having once been a very grounded show that looked like an indie movie or a procedural that presented unfamiliar worlds through behaviours rather than special effects and props.

DECLASSIFIED, in its unpretentious, grounded presentation of the SLIDERS format, shows how these self-consciously science fiction elements of the Sci-Fi Channel years are a cluttered distraction from the heart of SLIDERS which is best shown in having people from our world interact with people on other worlds.

And looking critically at my own SLIDERS writing, I seem to have fallen face first into these same unforced errors with SLIDERS REBORN. My plots are entirely too engaged with sliding technology, presenting it as a teleportation device for transporting supplies and then to create an end of the multiverse plot that isn't exactly on the more mundane tone of the sliders attempting to purchase pretzels. In addition, my editors were often alarmed by the humour where Wade grumbles that she planned to spend her evening ironing her socks, not sliding; where Rembrandt receives a replacement Cadillac from Quinn only for a runaway vortex to eat it a half hour later and take Rembrandt's house as well; where the sliders start a business selling 3D printed mini hamburgers and call the firm Sliders Incorporated.

I protested that SLIDERS has always been a comedy -- but DECLASSIFIED makes me realize that the comedy of SLIDERS was not based in Wade and Arturo sniping at each other and Rembrandt being haplessly out of place and Quinn being incompetent yet clever -- it was about the skewed and tilted inversions of our own reality.

My finale has sliding presented in terms of physical combat and while all this seemed to be a crowdpleaser judging from the fan mail, DECLASSIFIED has made me realize that despite comforting people who wanted a happy ending for Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo, my writing did not serve the purpose for which SLIDERS was built -- social satire and thoughtful commentary. There's quite a bit about doomsday scenarios in my writing -- but it's as specific and direct as a Bill Dial script; it's not a discussion, it's a lecture akin to SUPERGIRL calling for people to "resist" while its villains declare, "Nevertheless, she persisted."

DECLASSIFIED shows that SLIDERS wasn't made to lecture and cast judgement, it was made as an invitation for the audience to think and draw their own conclusions.

Which means that despite DECLASSIFIED inspiring me to focus on the zero budget PDF screenplay format for SLIDERS, I see now that I in fact learned all the wrong lessons from it. Should SLIDERS REBORN, written with this new understanding, have been different? The answer is... probably not because when you have dead characters resurrected (it's in the title), that shifts SLIDERS into the superhero genre and SLIDERS REBORN is taking the sliders (the characters) through superhero tropes in a dysfunctional and comedic way. It's the Acclaim comic book version of SLIDERS in the Marvel house style.

And that is fine -- but DECLASSIFIED is the real version of SLIDERS and comparing my material with his makes me *finally* understand why Temporal Flux was always so politely disinterested in resurrecting Wade, splitting the Quinns, liberating Earth Prime, recovering the original Arturo, dismissing the Kromagg Prime backstory and revealing whatever happened to Ryan, Henry, Michelle, Diana, Logan, the FBI, Bennish, Malcolm and Kaldeen.

The only thing Temporal Flux set out to resurrect was the SLIDERS storytelling platform and the only revelation he wanted to make was how SLIDERS' themes, tone, purpose and mission could continue with or without the original sliders. As TF says, DECLASSIFIED isn't an attempt to 'fix' SLIDERS; it's to demonstrate why he loves it.

Anyway. I am sure I will re-read DECLASSIFIED five years and now and learn something entirely new from it.

Temporal Flux is right to be cautious. But I wonder how feasible a China style social credit system is for America, a country that can't even implement social distancing.

Also -- did the Trump administration accomplish something recently?
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/0 … hip-236313

I pray that they have for my American brothers and sisters.

You know, the Donald Trump of the north, Doug Ford, has been far from perfect. But the public can see that he is fighting for their safety, for their resources, for their well-being. He failed to raise testing rates as quickly as possible, he has had disastrous results with long term care homes -- but everyone can see that he is putting in the hours, taking all the complaints, bearing all the blame. Everyone knows that none of his failures resulted from a lack of effort. Trying counts.

It's strange -- a lot of the realizations about SLIDERS that DECLASSIFIED prompted in me -- I realized them unknowingly when I read it years ago.

DECLASSIFIED is a SLIDERS story; despite not having the sliders, it has the themes and tone of the Pilot and most of the first season. It is recognizably SLIDERS in the way Seasons 4 - 5 so definitively aren't with their straightforward moralizing and their focus on physical threat. By showing the SLIDERS formula and brand without the sliders in it, Temporal Flux has demonstrated what the original model of SLIDERS storytelling was in the first place.

And that poses some interesting questions because one of the biggest problems SLIDERS fans have debated: how could SLIDERS have remained more recognizably SLIDERS across losing three-quarters of its cast and its original filming location and its series creators? One game has been to transplant the Season 1 - 2 cast into Season 3 - 5 episodes. You can read the version of "Sole Survivors" where poor Arturo has to fight zombies and the first draft of what became "The Other Slide of Darkness" which also features our beloved Professor. https://earthprime.com/sliders-scripts-collection Mike Truman wrote a clever essay about how Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo might have faced the vampires of "Stoker." https://earthprime.com/essays/salvaging-stoker I wrote a Quinn and Wade edition of "Net Worth." http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?id=323

One of my favourite fanfics is the Earth 210 episode guide set on an Earth where Torme and Weiss presumably stayed throughout and a lot of it is taking the existing episodes but assigning Maggie, Colin, Diana and Mallory's roles to the originals. https://earthprime.com/earth-210 I've generally seen Earth 210 as a plausible depiction of a Torme and Weiss SLIDERS -- but after re-reading DECLASSIFIED this week, I realize that this is not entirely the case.

DECLASSIFIED indicates that tone of SLIDERS under Torme and Weiss is not based in sci-fi action-adventure concepts. It isn't interested in virtual reality, slidewaves, cryogenics, interdimensional ghosts, slidecages, turning black people into cyborg zombies, amusement parks that consume negative emotions, bubble universes, collapsing universes, reality warping weapons, interdimensional trench warfare, interdimensional libraries, nanites, aritficial intelligence customer service, aliens landing on Earth, neural remapping and other STAR TREK/STARGATE style tropes. Torme and Weiss are mostly interested in the people who live in these worlds. They want to show what the infomercials would be like. How the fast food restaurants would run.

Putting Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo in Season 4 - 5 Sci-Fi Channel scripts may have livened them up and made them more familiar, but DECLASSIFIED reveals to me that they still wouldn't be SLIDERS stories as defined by Torme, Weiss and DECLASSIFIED.

Looking at Seasons 4 - 5 and its 40 episodes, only three story concepts stand out to me as immediately suited to the Torme/Weiss model: "Virtual Slide" could have been a fascinating exploration of a world where in-person communication is considered rude and intrusive and "A Current Affair" is potentially a razor sharp satire on how gossipy scandal distracts from politics of actual consequence to life and livelihood. "Map of the Mind" was potentially a great story about a world where fiction is viewed with contempt.

Marc Scott Zicree does a brilliant job with "World Killer" and "Slidecage," but neither is exactly a commentary on human society. Annie Fish in their Think of a Roulette Wheel blog called "World Killer" an "outlier" as Season 4 doesn't measure up to its quality. I wonder if "World Killer" would still have been an outlier, surrounded by more grounded stories in a Torme and Weiss run SLIDERS.

"Prophets and Loss" by Bill Dial -- I wonder if on a Torme/Weiss model, this story is reworked so that the fundamentalist rulers are fixated on the health of their population (something TF wrote about in another thread), using a social credit system to bar people from driving cars if they're considered overweight or getting into bars if they're considered to be staying out too late.

"California Reich" would probably be Torme's wish to have a story where black people practice racism against whites, although I dunno how that would play out. "Lipschitz Live" would probably need to be TF's idea of a reality TV world where privacy doesn't exist, everything is filmed and televised live and people actively play to the cameras to win themselves attention. "Net Worth," "Data World" and "Slide By Wire" are probably best folded into "Virtual Slide."

"Just Say Yes" was better off as Jerry O'Connell's "Narcotica" comic book which simply played the concept straight with a world where all drugs are legal.

"My Brother's Keeper" is potentially interesting -- I can't see Torme/Weiss being too keen on sci-fi cloning, but perhaps they would have liked something closer to "The Breeder"'s alt-world -- a world where people can sign up to donate organs for money including ones essential for staying alive, and the sliders find themselves trying to rescue donors who don't understand why the sliders are horrified by the situation.

"The Chasm" is ridiculous, but there could be something to a world where displays of anger and aggression are medicated as mental illness.

"Revelations" could have been an intriguing world where Holocaust denialism is mainstream? "New Gods For Old" is a really good story, and I wonder if that would be worth keeping mostly as-is as an outlier of a more sci-fi oriented story. "Please Press One" -- I'd probably fold the AI concept from that into "Virtual Slide," I'm not sure it needs its own episode. I feel like anything "The Java Jive" might have to say about a society addicted to caffeine and stimulants is also best folded into "Narcotica."

"Map of the Mind" is an excellent concept brought to life in an extremely Torme/Weiss style DOCTOR WHO story in a novel called "The Stealer of Dreams" and I recommend this Steve Lyons novel to all SLIDERS fans, even fans who aren't familiar with DOCTOR WHO.

"A Thousand Deaths" and its video game concept has me thinking of the classic STAR TREK anti-war story, "The Armageddon Factor" where two civilizations wage simulated wars and virtual casualties on either side are handled with civilians voluntarily reporting for execution. But it had been done by STAR TREK, I'm not sure SLIDERS needed to do a replay.

Mike Truman cited something very interesting about the episodes "Heavy Metal" and "Dust." "Heavy Metal" has the protagonists preventing the development of aircraft so that ships stay in business. "Dust" has the protagonists appalled by archaeologists intruding upon the dead. Truman noted that "Heavy Metal" and "Dust" demonstrate a clear hostility towards science and exploration, a very peculiar attitude for a science fiction series like SLIDERS. I wonder if that's something to be mined, but it was probably done sufficiently with "Gillian of the Spirits."

DECLASSIFIED has made me realize at a surprisingly late stage that a SLIDERS story is significantly more elusive than my SLIDERS REBORN scripts offering parallel Earths and making sure Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo have funny arguments throughout. It requires a careful hand to examine and twist the subject matter whether it's gender norms or in-person communication or a stimulant-addicted society or one that eschews fiction -- but it also needs to be subtle enough that it's a contemplation rather than an attack.

And it also makes me wonder -- if we were saddled with Maggie, Colin, Diana and Mallory but had a network and producers eager to maintain the Torme/Weiss model of non-confrontational satire -- who would have even be able to write these stories without Torme and Weiss at the helm? I couldn't do it. Tony Blake and Paul Jackson couldn't do it. David Peckinpah at his most engaged and determined couldn't do it. Bill Dial's "Prophets and Loss" and its crashingly unsubtle moralizing makes it pretty clear that he wasn't up for it. Marc Scott Zicree is a genius, but his genius does not lie in the Torme/Weiss model.

And that might be a nonsensical question anyway because any regime keen to maintain the Torme/Weiss design wouldn't have driven them from their show in the first place.

I just finished an episode where the legendary Sydney Tamiia Poitier catches Jerry in a very vulnerable moment and Jerry plays this scene very well without all the artifice and mugging that he usually engages in for Harley.

Jerry constantly highlights how Harley is smiling, chattering and asserting authority and expertise but falsely and pretending. Acting is not about pretending. Acting is about presenting emotional truth in fictional contexts and Harley Carter does not present truth except in these few isolated scenes where Jerry tones down Harley Carter's antics.

I could certainly be persuaded that Jerry O'Connell is performing Harley as a bad actor.

I watched a couple more episodes of CARTER which aired its second season of 10 episodes earlier this year. CARTER is about TV actor Harley Carter (Jerry O'Connell) on hiatus from his cop show and vacationing in the small town where he grew up. He starts solving actual crimes with his childhood friend Sam (Sydney Tamiia Poitier), a police detective. Carter views every moment in life as a scene from his TV show and is a grossly incompetent investigator, but through a combination of luck, luck, luck and Sam, he keeps haphazardly closing cases and is accepted as a police consultant. Season 1 of this show is ridiculous with Sam perpetually snarling at Carter that he is not a cop and that life is not a cop show and that his methods won't solve crimes only for Carter to solve crimes because CARTER is a cop show no matter what Sam says.

Season 2 is... about the same. While Syndey Tamiia Poitier brings the Sydney Tamiia Poitier forcefulness and authority to her character, Sydney Tamiia Poitier is now forced to defend Carter as an asset to criminal investigations. Now, this is Sydney Tamiia Poitier. If Sydney Tamiia Poitier told me that the moon was made of cheese and that Charlie O'Connell is a master thespian, I would believe it. Sydney Tamiia Poitier sells the moments in which she declares that Carter is capable of solving crimes.

Jerry O'Connell, however, is not entirely supporting her because his performance is a series of overstrained, overextended and generally overdone smirks and smiles. Carter doesn't seem competent at all and like a danger to himself and others and Jerry's overly twitchy performance makes him seem erratic. I'm not sure when this happened, but Jerry O'Connell seems to have thrown away his ability to be unforced and natural in his acting: every expression is prolonged just a few seconds too long, every gesticulation or nostril flare or furrowed brow is forced to the point where it's not a character reacting to a situation but an actor vastly overplaying his scene.

On some level, it works for CARTER because Carter is treating every situation like a scene in his TV show. But in publicity photos and interviews, Jerry has exhibited quite a bit of this behaviour, often visibly refusing to blink while the camera is on him (which is also present in CARTER), stretching his mouth wide to show every tooth in his smile -- and it makes me wonder if he would bring any of this into playing Quinn Mallory if he were to do so again.

That said, Carter and Quinn are *very* different characters and if Jerry were to reprise Quinn, I would want him to perform Quinn as a quiet, subtle observer, a man who stands at a slight distance to watch and absorb all information, a person who is thinking intensely about everything before he says anything at all. Carter is not a thinker but a character of impulses, so Jerry's acting is appropriate for this character -- I just hope he isn't playing every other role like this these days.

I'm not going to describe any specific scenes from DECLASSIFIED in this post, but DECLASSIFIED is a really special piece of work to me as a reader and a fan of SLIDERS because Temporal Flux does something special: he captures the spirit of SLIDERS.

Soft Touch: The SLIDERS house style as established by Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss has a very specific personality: it's satirical and gentle. Shows like SOUTH PARK and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE are direct and savage in mocking politics, culture and societal prejudice. But SLIDERS is indirect and kind. Perhaps one of the most memorable scenes of SLIDERS is the Pilot where a captive Rembrandt is told by a threatening Ross J. Kelly that the Soviet ruled America will have Rembrandt put on trial in The People's Court -- which is revealed to be the actual TV courtroom show.

Comedic: Temporal Flux's approach to SLIDERS is very focused on the social satire and the specific tone of the show as found in "Prince of Wails" where the celebrity profile of the English Royal Family is presented in terms of a light Robin Hood pastiche. And as seen when SLIDERS regards sports fanatics with amusement in "Eggheads" as commentators are fixated on the statistics of Mindgame and rappers are shown expressing the joy of learning. The soul of SLIDERS is not based in grand oratory about current events like THE WEST WING or in ridiculing extremists like a modern CW superhero show. Instead, SLIDERS provides allegories in the way THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS created situations analagous to 60s civil rights issues, but the SLIDERS twist is that its allegories are comedic and sweet.

A Natural: DECLASSIFIED very naturally and easily captures that tone. It satirizes its subject with a gently comic allegory. It creates a lightly adversarial and warm interplay between its characters. It mines its material to create comedic situations regarding capitalism and consumer culture and mass media competition, but unlike SOUTH PARK which stabs its targets, Temporal Flux takes the SLIDERS approach of tilting his object of focus rather than attacking it and that turns out to be the core of TF's vision for SLIDERS.

Stripped Bare: It's impressive because as a SLIDERS story, DECLASSIFIED is completely lacking in most of the usual identifiers for SLIDERS. DECLASSIFIED was written as a fan film. It does not feature Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo, it doesn't feature San Francisco and is distinctly written to have few extras and locations. It doesn't feature four civillian misfits. It doesn't have the SLIDERS formula of visiting a dystopia and falling in with the local resistance.

Identity: And yet, it is clearly a SLIDERS story in the vein of a Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss script because it skews its subject matter without skewering it and mines the characters' confused, comedic assimilation of a strange new land for that elusive yet undeniable SLIDERS tone of humour and adversity. It doesn't feel like an approximation of the authorial voice that created the original SLIDERS pilot; it simply is that voice.

Difficult: Even the very best SLIDERS stories by others don't achieve this and wisely don't try. Nigel Mitchell, for example, is a master world builder for SLIDERS with many wonderfully off-the-wall concepts for alt-histories -- but his writing is used to create a nightmarish sense of threat against the sliders. Marc Scott Zicree viewed SLIDERS as a platform for extravagant science fiction concepts rather than social commentary. Mike Truman aims for satirical scripts and prose, but his writing expresses frustration, outrage and exasperation with societal prejudices and establishment fictions.

Voice: In my own SLIDERS writing, I find that I simply have the wrong personality for effective social satire. I am direct and specific; I am critical instead of comedic -- which is why my writing focuses on a pastiche of the actors. My writing sounds like the voices of Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John. But Temporal Flux's writing sounds like Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss.

Defined: Temporal Flux's writing is so close to the Torme and Weiss model that to me, they might as well be one and the same. Temporal Flux's satire is deftly ironic and wry rather than angry, precisely as defined by Torme and Weiss -- which makes a lot of sense when seeing that both men were of TV and film that includes SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, THE BLUES BROTHERS and THE NAKED GUN series.

In Likeness: In fact, Temporal Flux's thinking on SLIDERS is so similar to Torme. In 2000, I asked Torme what his pefect ending for SLIDERS would be. Torme said he'd like to see Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo make it home with Quinn stranded on another world; the three sliders would rebuild their lives, but after a time, they would find a way to rescue Quinn and in travelling to another world to save him, they would lose their way back and be lost in the interdimension once again but this time by choice.

Authentic: In 2012 or so, this forum was randomly contemplating what the ideal end for SLIDERS would have been and Temporal Flux said he could imagine an ending where the sliders make it home without Quinn and then rescue Quinn but lose the way home in doing so and accept this because home is not a place but the people you're with. His random speculations were the intentions of the series creator.

I have always felt that Nigel Mitchell and Mike Truman capture the inventiveness and imagination of SLIDERS and that I capture the voice of the four original sliders. That we use the SLIDERS platform for our own voices. But Temporal Flux's voice is the actual voice of SLIDERS and that's why DECLASSIFIED has a perfect authenticity for the series.

Well, I am a big fan of DOCTOR WHO audio plays. Maybe the next season of the Arrowverse has no visuals, is audioplay only, while commercial ads display throughout the entire one hour timeslot.

But I like TF’s idea of Barry mastering Zoom.

https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/telev … 234595453/

Warner Bros.' TV departments is discussing how they can resume filming after the virus is confirmed to have peaked in Vancouver but before effective antivirals or vaccines are available. They're wondering if they can produce shows with no physical contact between actors and stunt performers, no extras, no outdoor location filming, no open access food tables, and all crew members six feet apart.

... I dunno.

Well, Trump is having a rare moment of strategic clarity. He has over 25 assault accusations; attacking Biden over Reade would only draw attention to his crimes. Maybe he should tell his son that. As Slider_Quinn21 notes, it's a non-starter as a point of attack for the Trump campaign because no sensible person will refuse to vote for a man with one assault accusation to favour a man with two dozen and more.

**

Biden has spoken, first on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/ … 2865221937

And then in a statement posted on Medium: https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/statement- … 9593bd3012

I reserve the right to change my opinion on this at any time, but Biden has done most of what I've asked. He has spoken directly and denied the allegations. He has asked that the National Archives divulge any documentation relating to Tara Reade. He has refused to open his archives in the University of Delaware's basement, however, on the grounds that (a) they contain confidential secrets of state (b) do not contain personnel records and (c) a search for personnel records that aren't in there could create an expectation of publicizing private contents before the redactions for security and privacy have been made. This sounds reasonable to me, although I reserve the right to alter that view should new information come to light.

The university has further clarified that the documents are still being sorted and reviewed, so no search is even possible at this time.

Biden refused to elaborate on Reade's employment in his office and he conveyed his reasons for that as well. He is refusing to characterize Reade in any way; he has declared that he will not pursue any action against her whether legal or in the court of public opinion other than to say that he did not assault her. In doing so, Biden has ensured that nothing he says to deny the allegations can serve to harm other female accusers, something he is clearly keen to avoid.

MSNBC fixated on demanding that Biden explain how he can say that women should be believed and then say that Reade is lying. Biden replied that women should be presumed to be telling the truth at the outset and then their claims must be evaluated. The fixation on rhetoric is relevant but not particularly informative when it comes to facts. Biden refused to speculate on Reade's motives or goals. However, he did state that he does not have nondisclosure agreements with anyone. This is significant as many wealthy sexual predators buy silence from their victims in this manner.

Watching Biden speak, I saw what he would not express -- anger and hurt and grief. I could see fury in his eyes that he would contain with a breath and with silence, not wanting to voice contempt or disdain that could make any female accuser think she'd be similarly silenced, instead emphasizing that Tara Reade has the right to say whatever she wants just as Joe Biden has the right to say it isn't true.

It was a very fine line of refuting the allegation while insisting that women should be heard when they make such allegations and I can see why it took so long for Biden to decide how he wanted to respond to this. There was a muted, quiet astonishment in his face in moments, a shock that someone would accuse him of attacking them physically matched with a grim awareness of what those motives could be -- attention, a smear campaign plotted by a foreign power, a mental illness that has chosen him as its target -- and then a refusal to state those suspicions as they would be (a) speculative and (b) demeaning to women with genuine allegations.

Look, I don't read people perfectly or even well; I've had to buy books on facial expressions. But I said what Biden had to do to win my trust back and he's done 3/4 of it. The 1/4 he didn't do -- a full account of his encounters with Reade -- he's given his reasons for why he won't divulge that outside of agreeing to provide whatever paperwork he has. But Biden has refused to express hostility, refused to try to silence Reade, agreed to divulge his papers relating to Reade, explained why he won't open up the Delaware-housed documents, controlled his anger and outrage -- so for now -- FOR NOW -- I believe Joe Biden and I believe in him.

And I know how very important it is to Grandpop that a Canadian who can't vote for him is on his side.

https://deadline.com/2020/04/joe-biden- … 202922618/

Biden will speak on Friday and respond to the accusation.

Well, in 2000 over AOL Instant Messenger, I asked Torme: how would he resolve the cliffhanger of "The Seer"? Torme said that he hadn't seen it and would prefer not knowing anything about it because he was sure it would only make him depressed and angry. But that if he had to follow up on it, he would use a story he'd come up with before he quit the show with Season 3. His idea was a Kromagg story that would be "surreal and trippy" where Quinn would wake up to find himself home with time rewound back to the Pilot and only Quinn remembering sliding.

He would encounter doubles of characters he'd met during Seasons 1 - 2 and Logan from Season 3 at which point he'd realize that sliding was real. The situation would be revealed as a Kromagg trick, and Torme said that to address "The Seer" without having to watch it, he'd declare that any episode after "The Guardian" to be part of the Kromagg scenario. Torme explained that "The Guardian" was his favourite episode of the series and the last one he was happy with, calling "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" out as "very mediocre."

So, that's how he'd answer your poll, but when writing his Post-It of a story idea into a script, I elected to make the cutoff point the Season 2 finale. That way, while the "Slide Effects" script ends with the sliders still lost in the multiverse, the Kromagg tracking device has been destroyed and Logan isn't pursuing them and the Professor isn't dying of a terminal illness. Also, as far as Torme was concerned, "Invasion" happened before "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" and Arturo had the Kromagg tracking device but was stranded on the Azure Gate Bridge world -- which isn't reflected in the actual airdates as "Invasion" aired after PTTS. My "Slide Effects" script uses the original broadcast order and says that Quinn had the implant, another divergence from Torme's intentions.

Later, Torme proposed but did not complete a screenplay for EP.COM. He sent an outline called "The Long Slide Home" which opens with Quinn and the Professor removing Logan St. Clair's whispering gallery system from the geographic spectrum stabilizer and restoring Quinn's original laser gyro system to put their slides back in the San Francisco area, so even in his fanfic, he wanted to integrate "Double Cross" into his selective continuity.

Torme also stated, interestingly, that he intended to gift his script to both Transmodiar AND Temporal Flux and they could feature it on their respective sites as they saw fit. Unfortunately, due to professional obligations, he never finished it.

Also, Torme came up with his Kromagg story that revisits the Pilot before he gave up on Season 3, before John was fired and before Seasons 4 - 5. However, when asked how he would fix his show, his "Invasion" sequel was the story he put forward to roll back the continuity of the series. And when he was asked to where he'd roll it back, he picked "The Guardian."

A lot of people think Biden is experiencing cognitive decline. But another possibility: Biden as a child suffered from a stutter. In adolescence, Biden learned various techniques to manage, control and isolate his speech difficulties. But in controlling his stutter, he seemed to cede control in other areas.

Throughout his career, Biden has been described as a "gaffe machine" and throughout his time with Obama, Biden blabbered and babbled, often making potentially costly errors of impulsivity. He encouraged Senator Chuck Graham, a stranger to him, to stand up at a rally, only to realize upon closer view that Senator Graham was in a wheelchair. Biden apologized and asked the audience to stand for Graham, a brilliant self-correction. He also dropped F-bombs into live mics, neglected to thank the individuals he quoted in speeches (which made it plagiarism), and now it looks like in Biden's advancing years, the methods that once mastered his stutter have led to often garbled, confused statements and he's now he's trying to control it with retraint.

**

... why isn't Biden responding to the Reade allegations? The worst possibility -- and I hope it isn't the case -- is that it's true and Biden is hoping to stonewall. Or could the Biden campaign be trying to investigate Reade's ties to Russia and lying in wait to reveal something?

However, the Biden campaign has also presented talking points to Democrats for responding to questions about Reade and the talking points, while emphasizing Biden's support for women, falsely declare that the New York Times article cleared Biden. That's simply not true; it was inconclusive, yet Biden has commanded his surrogates and potential vice presidents to misrepresent the Times investigation as proving Reade's claims false. They're trying to starve the story of any further news coverage and let it die out by not feeding it any more information. Why?

Assuming innocence -- could it be that Biden doesn't remember Tara Reade? And can't offer any answers? And saying that he has no memory of her would only allow further claims to fill in the gap of information with the worst of speculations? The other possibility is that while Biden didn't rape Reade, he touched her legs, shoulder and neck, rubbed noses with her, smelled her hair and confessing to that paves the way to the public assuming he did the rest and so he's sealed that off.

This is something I've seen people do in this forum: I said that Biden had only one accusation of assault and a poster provided a lengthy list of names of other Biden accusers -- except those women were not alleging assault. Touching someone intrusively on the shoulder / arm / leg / neck / face is not the same as raping someone. Neither is acceptable, but intrusive touching can be poor social calibration, ignorance, outdated views of women -- which can be corrected with understanding and empathy. Raping someone is an act of violence and willful harm meant specifically to injure and damage.

One of my favourite TV shows, CHUCK, has lengthy comedy scenes of two Best Buy salesmen sexually harassing women and being met with slaps to the face and other well-deserved punishment. At the time, I thought it was funny and acceptable because the men always got their comeuppance. Watching it today, I am deeply disturbed that CHUCK never devotes any screentime to how the women must feel to be groped, tricked, leered at and surveilled and assumes that their putting a fist into their harasser's faces is sufficient. I've met a lot of women since I first saw CHUCK and listened.

**

Slate.com had an interesting perspective: that we need not support Joe Biden because we think him the living embodiment of our standards and values. Instead, it suggests that those of us with reservations about Biden view him not as our ally but as our chosen enemy -- with the perspective that someone in authority will always stand in the way of Medicare For All, repairing the damage to our planet, universal basic income -- and a presidential election is a chance to choose whether we want that person standing in the way to be a deranged lunatic or someone who can be swayed by reason and knowledge.

Can we do that? Vote Biden! He only wants to do one term anyway and it'll be easier to get Andrew Yang in 2024.

I'm sorry. I was confused. I thought you were selling it as I thought you'd previously communicated that you had scripts.

I don't know that the work was pressing, but it was a matter of either paying some money to repair the car between now to 12 months from now or buying a new car entirely in 2 - 3 years' time. (Urgent, important information!)

I'm not really the archaeologist sort. I don't concern myself with collectibles. I have no desire for Tracy Torme or Jerry O'Connell to autograph any possessions, I don't want a timer replica, I don't need to gather costumes or what-not. The stuff I care about with SLIDERS, I have to make myself or it wouldn't exist at all. I don't speak for any other fan, of course.

Congratulations! I wonder what single item I'd be willing to spend $402.11 on.

...

Auto body repair work.

Transmodiar has told me that it's not appropriate for me to discuss his inner thinking in this forum, so I'm going to leave that to him -- but I will confess that for my own personal reasons, I too am okay with SLIDERS not coming back. SLIDERS was an intensely personal trauma for me that I worked through on my own intensely personal terms. When the Professor died, I was 10 and it was like seeing my own father die. Everything in my life since then has been a reaction to the death of Professor Arturo and when I brought him back to life in "Slide Effects" and later again in SLIDERS REBORN, something changed in me -- for the better, I think. If SLIDERS came back, I would be starting that journey again -- albeit on a parallel track.

However. I would like SLIDERS to come back for the fans, for Temporal Flux, for Slider_Quinn21 and for Informant and SLIDERS should come back for the people who miss it rather than stay away for the people who don't, if that makes any sense. And it is for the people who want it back that I would like Quinn to be played by Corey Fogelmanis (geekboy Farkle on GIRL MEETS WORLD), Wade to be played by Isabel May (hyperactive Katie on ALEXA AND KATIE), Rembrandt to be played by Levar Burton (you know who he is) and Arturo to be played by David Warner (look him up).

He needs to answer: does he remember Reade? What were the substance of their interactions? Why was she let go from his office? What harassment did he engage in towards her? He should be honest and confess if he engaged in overlong hugs / nose bumps / forehead rubs / hands on waists and shoulders. He can deny that he did anything sexual including penetrating her with his fingers. He can point out that Reade's story has him doing that in a public hallway of the building which is absurd.

He can say that he cannot comment on why Reade may have told her friends and neighbour and family of this, but that Reade was dismissed because she was erratic and prone to fabricating stories which we've seen a pattern of in her scamming a horse rescue not for profit. He can say that he urges everyone to believe women, but that believing is a starting point: believing means listening to everything they've ever said which in Reade's case includes saying that Biden was a great boss and that he could be trusted and that nothing he did towards her was sexual in addition to saying that he raped her and that he's a liar and that he's a terrible person.

He can say that he hopes Reade finds help and peace and that he didn't assault her; that he was devoted to his wife and that he would never have lingered at work because he was always racing to get the train home to his family. He can open up his personnel records and let CNN comb through them.

EDITED TO ADD: The Atlantic and others are calling on Biden to open his Senate office records -- currently housed at the University of Delaware -- and let the press review them. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi … rs/610801/

I'm going to be frank; I'm scared that I may have been supporting a rapist. I can't imagine that warm grandfather raping a woman, but I myself am a reformed harasser of women. I did not assault anyone, but I made inappropriate and intrusive physical contact and unwelcome remarks and looked too long and stood too close and followed women around campus when I was a student. I am deeply ashamed of my past and I can tell you from experience that who we see in the mirror today is rarely who we were even a mere 10 - 15 years ago.

I wasn't always a figure of platonic female friendship whose social circle is entirely women. Biden was not always his grandfather persona. Who was in he in 1993?

And now for something completely different: SUPERGIRL!

Decades ago, during Season 2 of SUPERGIRL, Dean Cain's recurring role as Kara Danvers' adoptive, missing father took prominence. Cain's Jeremiah Danvers was revealed as a rescued prisoner of Cadmus, the anti-alien terrorist group. But once welcomed back, Jeremiah broke into the DEO to steal weapons technology and was revealed to be in league with Cadmus and their plot to massacre all aliens.

Jeremiah went on the run as a fugitive with Cadmus' leader, Lillian Luthor, with Kara and Alex Danvers now forced to hunt down their father and demand answers as to his betrayal. Jeremiah's final appearance showed him conferring with Lillian Luthor who agreed that as part of their deal, Cadmus would be building... something... for Jeremiah. That was it; Jeremiah never reappeared except as a telepathic illusion. Lillian Luthor returned in the Season 2 finale and said that she had no idea where Jeremiah was and the character was never referred to again until Season 5 when it was established that Jeremiah had died off camera of a stroke while doing charity work.

What happened? Well, during Season 2, Dean Cain supported Donald Trump's electoral campaign. SUPERGIRL cut all ties with Cain and declined to have him on set again, leaving Jeremiah's arc unfinished.

Looking at Season 2 -- it didn't register at the time, but a second look indicates that Jeremiah's intentions were somewhat present: Cadmus was keen to kill all alien immigrants. Jeremiah instead provided the blueprints and plans to build a spacefleet to send the aliens back to their homeworlds which would have spared Kara as well. The information is present, but Jeremiah never appeared onscreen to take ownership of this choice, establish his reasons and answer to Kara and Alex, so it never *felt* like his motives were explained.

And ultimately, SUPERGIRL betrayed itself and its narrative obligations. While it asserted the moral high ground by kicking Dean Cain off the set, it would a few months later revealed that it had blown up that high ground long ago when showrunner Andrew Kreisberg was revealed to be an unrepentant sexual harasser who would be fired off all his shows. Trump supporter is not always a full character description, but sexual harasser is pretty comprehensive. But regardless of Kreisberg's dismissal, Cain was no longer wanted and Season 5 now attempts to write Cain an exit story with "Alex in Wonderland" even though only his body double appears, seen from behind.

SUPERGIRL attempts to turn into the spin by having Alex withdraw into a fantasy world, revisit her final confrontation with Jeremiah (or rather, the back of his head while he's turned away from her) and it defines Jeremiah's death entirely in terms of absence. Jeremiah is away: he cannot explain himself, he cannot give Alex closure, he's never even seen as in an image, he can never justify or validate anything he did. Death isn't random like Professor Stein getting shot by an anonymous Nazi goon and end his story as a hero. Or Dr. Henry Allen being executed in a hostage situation and assuring Barry that his heroism is his identity and choice and not a front or a fake. Or like Oliver giving his life to save worlds.

Instead, Jeremiah's death is confusing, disorienting, inexplicable, unsatisfying and devoid of answers and explanations. Throughout the episode, Alex withdraws from the question by escaping into a virtual reality fantasy. And then by the end, she withdraws from the question again by conceding that she's simply never going to find answers. We're never going to know why Informant insisted on supporting Donald Trump after 25 assault allegations and over 50,000 dead. We can only speculate, theorize and contemplate our questions and know that we'll need to learn to live with them.

**

I'm kind of worried about this Tara Reade thing, guys. Reade's story seemed like something she'd thrown together recently for whatever reason, but it's starting to look like her story has been present but told only to a few in the 90s. We shouldn't blow it off just because Trump has 25 rape accusations to Biden's one.

I think it's time for Biden to answer to these allegations personally.

I'm uncomfortable calling Tara Reade a liar and the Krassenstein brothers who wrote that Medium article are like the Alex Jones of the left who made money in fraudulent investment schemes. That said, I have been following their work. I put no credence in their inflammatory editorials -- but they linked to Reade's past tweets and medium posts as archived or screenshotted by others. If they told me 2 + 2 equaled four, I'd check their math -- and I have been checking their math where Reade is concerned and the Krassensteins seem to be onto something with Reade just as a broken clock is right twice a day.

I'm uncomfortable not believing a woman who says she's been assaulted, but if I'm to believe everything Tara Reade says, then I also have to believe that:

• Sexual assault was unheard of in 1993 when the Senate and Supreme Court scandals had been front page news a year previous.

• She met Joe Biden in a public, foot-traffic heavy hallway of a government building and he assaulted her in a private area of this open, pedestrian-prone space.

• Her mother would describe her daughter's rapist as someone for whom her child had "respect" and that her only option was "the press" (as opposed to the police).

• Reade fervently adored Biden (as she stated herself over social media from California) while despising him for raping her.

• Reade wasn't sexually assaulted (as she said herself in The Union) and was sexually assaulted (as she said in her podcast).

• Reade absolutely loves Russia (as she said in her self-posted Medium articles) but despises Russia for legalizing domestic abuse (as she said on Twitter) while loving Putin (as she said on Medium) and her self-posted Medium articles were taken out of context (by herself?) from a novel she was writing.

EDITED TO ADD: Reade is now saying that the posts that she wrote about loving Russia with all her heart which were taken out of context when she posted them on Medium herself were also not written by her and in fact written by hackers who stole her account information.

...

Her stories don't make any sense to me and I would be extremely cautious because believing any one thing Reade says means dismissing everything else she's ever said.

People who are as erratic as this will sometimes engage in fraud because they're flailing desperately for any markers of stability. I don't think Reade is well and as someone with his own mental illness issues, I hope that we can be kind.

I don't doubt it's the voice of Tara Reade's mother, Jeanette Altimus. I don't doubt anything Altimus says -- which isn't substantial. She says that her daughter "had problems" with then-Senator Biden and couldn't "get through with her problems" and that she chose not to "go to the press" and made that choice "out of respect for him."

Altimus doesn't say that Biden assaulted Reade although she does indicate that whatever Reade had to say about Biden would have been damaging in a court of public opinion but maintains that Reade respected Biden.

What mother defending and believing her child would describe her daughter as having "respect" for her rapist? I know a victim might claim to respect the perpetrator to normalize the relationship -- but would that be said by a mother who believes her daughter's rape accusation?

To me, Altimus sounds like she's describing one of the many accounts of Biden being overly affectionate with women -- hugs that lasted too long, smelling hair, bumping foreheads, rubbing noses -- behaviours that a pre-civil rights man might think supportive and affirming only to realize that they are intrusive and hurtful. It sounds ridiculous to say that, but any man born before 1990 (like me) has likely harassed a woman in this manner and can (like me) learn to be better and realize that respect for women is conveyed through actions of listening and meaningful support for their ambitions and voices and not through any physical contact.

Another issue that we have with Reade is that she has gone from loathing world leaders to becoming infatuated with them and then flip-flopping. She lavishly praised Biden in 2016 - 2017, retweeted numerous articles alleging ties between Trump and Putin in 2016 and how Putin effectively legalized domestic assault on women. Then in 2018, she wrote:

And in 2019:

And then there's Reade's original account of Biden's behaviour where she insists that she was not sexually assaulted.

Reade is erratic and extreme in how smitten she becomes with political figures before the pendulum swings to her loathing them.

In cases like Weinstein and his like, there is an established pattern, Multiple women have come out with stories depicting the same methods of assault: the way Weinstein lured women into hotel rooms and his requests for massages and his use of female assistants to make the encounter seem professional at the start.

In Biden's case, there is an established pattern -- and that pattern reported by multiple women is one of overly prolonged and close gestures of affection. There is no common pattern of assault across the multiple accusations; it's harassment and that's not okay, but one pattern is based in hatred and violence and one is not.

And with Tara Reade, there's an established pattern as well: she allows imaginings to overrule reality. She retweeted articles on Putin making it legal for men to beat their wives, then she started writing fevered daydreams about Putin shirtless. She was escaping an abusive, traumatic marriage when she entered Biden's employ in 1993; she is inconsistent and wildly variable.

I don't doubt that she believes what she's said when she's said it: she believed it when she called Biden a speaker of truth, when she called Putin a domestic abuser, when she called him an interfering force in the 2016 elections. She believed it when she said that Biden's behaviour towards her wasn't sexual and when she said that he sexually assaulted her and that Putin is a wifebeater and that he's admired by most women.

I don't think Reade has an agenda or is a Russian agent or is trying to support a Trump victory or is trying to win fame -- I think she isn't well.

On China: I merely mean I'd prefer that language in media differentiate Chinese government from Chinese ethnicity. I know the Biden campaign is not racist, but for Asians in America taking a lot of abuse and stigma, they view that lack of distinction as racism and that's pretty understandable. And takes one to two extra words to avoid that. "The Chinese government" as opposed to "the Chinese" or "China." Surely those extra syllables could be provided.

On Admissions: As much as I dislike neo-Nazis and white supremacists and misogynists, at least they have the courage (or depravity) to declare who and what they are -- as opposed to trying to shield their stances by calling themselves alt-right men's rights activists and then falling silent when their positions become obvious in their irrationality as they know voicing them would put them outside the realm of reasoned discussion.

And I admit all. Joe Biden is a crashingly mediocre, average person who "stands for" what I "stand for" (at least when a camera is rolling) and him being in power would make me feel safer and if the US stabilized, I would certainly become richer and I like it that a President Biden would remind me of my grandfather who was a man with attitudes from a specific era in the past who took care of me but had many shortcomings and social difficulties while still being a (generally) responsible, hardworking, generous soul.

I dunno if I'd want my grandfather to be leader of the free world, but if I had to choose between him or someone who's already allowed 40,000 Americans to die and still won't get to work on getting personal protective equipment and medical supplies to the states he took an oath to serve, I'd have to go with Grandfather and do what I could to help him not completely screw up at his job. I mean, at least Grandpop is working on getting his transition team together while having the humility to concede that the race isn't won yet and he's just prepping for if he does win it.

I am continuing to take a lot of heat among my friends and family for choosing to support Joe Biden (not that my support means much; I can't even vote in America). That I'm crazy to think a President Biden would do anything to cancel student debt, bring about Medicare for All, put corporations in their place, stop billionaires from existing, or do anything to be a good president.

I think a President Biden would be okay and I think that with a Biden presidency, the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens and Andrew Yangs of this world could spend less time diving for cover from whatever cruelty and savagery Trump unleashes and spend more time pursuing their progressive goals. I think an okay presidency could lead to a great one. Let's see Andrew Yang run again in 2024.

I remember sending Transmodiar the first draft of the SLIDERS REBORN outline and bemoaning how god-awful it was; all the clumsy writing, the strained logic to produce the fan service that I wanted. It was terrible. Transmodiar wrote back: "How about you take a couple days and try to get it from terrible to 'adequate'?"

If SLIDERS in Season 3 had been filled with episodes as adequate and acceptable as "Double Cross," "Dead Man Sliding," "Murder Most Foul," "Season's Greedings" and the like -- episodes that are totally okay -- it would have established a baseline to gradually ascend back to greatness. Instead, Season 3 was filled with episodes like "Electric Twister Acid Test," "The Dream Masters," "State of the ART," "Desert Storm," "The Fire Within," "Slide Like An Egyptian," "Paradise Lost," "The Last of Eden," "Slither," "The Breeder," "The Other Slide of Darkness," "Stoker," "This Slide of Paradise" and it became a quantum leap just to make it back to the heights of mediocrity. Mediocrity can be a very good starting point.

At the same time, I'm not confusing adequacy with excellence, but the presidency has been given far more power and importance than it was ever meant to have. The role was designed for the president to preside over the nation; to guide and run rather than rule or dictate.

James Carville Jr., Democratic strategist, thinks that the election is the Democrats' to lose if they're incompetent or weak -- and I'm sorry to say that Democrats often are exactly that. Nevertheless:

Yeah, I'm worried that the Conservative premier of my province, Doug Ford, is winning so much acclaim right now that he will sail into re-election and then resume his platform of austerity and political savagery. But no one should worry about that right now; the focus has to be on saving lives.

The Prime Minister of Canada is a very sweet but deeply amateur leader. He's great at gestures: after he won the office, he spent the next morning in a subway station randomly greeting commuters and thanking them, he achieved gender-parity in his cabinet, he wears STAR WARS socks, he expressed a self-confessed layman's enthusiasm for quantum computing.

He also bought an oil pipeline despite his stated intentions to reduce pollution, attempted to force a sweetheart deal for a company prosecuted for bribery and accepted a free vacation on a private island, both of which the ethics commissioner of Canada found a breach of the public trust and cost him badly. He came out of re-election with a government that had gone from a majority to a minority and significantly short on the popular vote.

Most recently, Prime Minister Trudeau had been in self-isolation after his wife tested positive for COVID-19; after she recovered and tested negative, she took the children to the family cottage outside the capital city and in a different province (think state). During Easter, Trudeau and many premiers (think governors) urged people not to go to their out-of-city cottages and secondary residences: they would put unbearable weight on those health care systems and food supplies. Police checkpoints were set up to keep residents from traveling between provinces. After that message, Trudeau crossed the Ontario provincial border into Quebec to join his wife and children at the cottage for Easter. The optics are terrible on this.

That said, the prime minister is an essential worker and permitted to cross borders; he has a private staff and physician and would not have strained Quebec's resources or food supply; he remained within the quarantine group of his wife and children and the personal staff with whom he'd lived during his wife's self-isolation. But very simply, Trudeau told people not to cross provincial lines or go to their secondary residences and promptly did both. God damn it.

This sort of thing happens. Trudeau's done some good stuff, essentially bringing about a universal basic income for the unemployed or underemployed for the duration of this emergency. It is going to cost trillions, but Trudeau effectively declared he would worry about the economy LATER; right now, he wanted everyone to have a monthly paycheque. Yes, he screwed up on the cottage front; it hardly seems to matter. I've seen the deranged village idiot running the show down south; I'd rather have the occasionally inept but fundamentally decent father figure.

In the States, the light of my life, Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, has been taking heavy fire for an updated ban on businesses selling anything other than food and medicine, barring people from buying gardening supplies and paint to try to induce them to stay indoors and apart in retail shops. It's a well-intentioned measure and my province did something similar. But they didn't ban sales of these items; they instead ordered that all non-food and medicine retailers switch to online orders and curbside pickup which is the online reason I'm online right now; my router blew and I needed a new one. Curbside pickup is how I got one.

Whitmer's error may have cost her a place on Biden's VP shortlist which is a shame, but my niece grumbles that I always go for hyperactively peppy white women who get stuff done and swear like sailors and that just because I like someone personally doesn't mean they should be in the White House. She is correct.

A lot of my friends aren't too happy with me when politics come up. Most of the people I know in Real Life are women who are extremely left of center. (Did I say most? I meant all.)

They are not happy that I have spoken well of the premier of my province as he has historically been conservative and a Trump supporter and his good handling of a health crisis has won no favour with them after all of his bad and malicious budget cuts.

They are not happy with me for not believing Tara Reade's accusations towards Joe Biden. They are not happy that I think Biden might be okay as they feel he is not a revolutionary and not sufficiently progressive and they find his warm grandfather persona to be phony and fake and they are disgusted by his handsy past and believe Tara Reade's story.

They are not happy that I favour Governor Gretchen Whitmer as Biden's VP (I adore that lady, she is SUCH a go-getter) and my friends would rather see Stacy Abrams (whom I feel is an excellent human being but inexperienced), Elizabeth Warren (I'm worried she'll alienate Bernie's supporters) or Kamala Harris (whom I feel isn't progressive enough to balance Biden out).

We have a former friend who had arrogance to declare that his opinions represented all of us in consensus. I know what he would say if he and I were on the same side politically. He would say that women will always believe another woman even if what's being said contradicts history and doesn't explain past behaviour. He'd say that of course they'd favour someone with the woke label or someone of colour over someone of skill because wokeness is an act and any concern for people of colour is just pandering to specific demographics. He'd say that anyone who disagrees with me/us are just acting out their biases and trauma and insecurities whereas we, as clear, right-thinking individuals, are unencumbered by prejudice of any kind.

*shudders*

My response to my friends is: I prefer their disagreement. My opinions are MY opinions and I'd prefer it if you would get your own. No one should live in an echo chamber and no one should claim that a difference of opinion is due to one side being deceitful or mentally ill. In fact, if Slider_Quinn21 agrees with me on anything after this, I'm going to make a special effort to find something to argue over with him. :-D

Joe Biden is old. I just wrote him a letter because he was asking his supporters (even reluctant ones like myself) for advice on what principles his campaign should adhere to.

The problem with Biden, his greatest challenge, is that his successful career was the result of a gift for connecting with people in person and on the senate floor with earnest, off-the-cuff, rambling oratory that was outraged and sincere and heartfelt -- and that gift for combining righteous anger with incision and humour -- it's faded with age. Biden has lost his aptitude for the smartass, punchy quip. His days of snarking that Rudy Guliani's every sentence is "a noun, a verb and 9-11" are done. His ability to whip Paul Ryan's empty numerical nonsense back in Ryan's face -- that's gone too.

When Kamala Harris criticized him for being against bussing black school children or when an auto worker accused him of trying to take away his guns, Biden launched into an incoherent delivery of a canned response that became a lost, floundering burst of random elements of his opinion. Trump has the same problem except his answers are unveiled presentations of his cruelty, racism, egotism and disrespect that, for people like Informant, I guess, are entertaining and have won his support.

I don't think Biden was struggling or tired with Bernie, but I can see why it read that way. I think Biden was trying to be low key and gentle and respectful and not seem overly triumphant, smug or superior that Bernie was going to be working for him now. I think Biden was trying to be deferential and gracious instead of commanding. But Biden is not what he used to be and that will be okay if he focuses on his other gifts: his warmth and ability to not take attacks personally and rise above it. He embraced Kamala Harris at a fundraiser and thanked her for her criticisms. He has asked Elizabeth Warren to help him. And he gave Trump his advice on COVID-19 and, for a brief moment, brought Trump into the realm of civility.

So when Trump goes on some crazed, unhinged rant and runs rings around Biden, Biden's best bet given his current abilities, is to be centered, resolute and determined. Instead of going after Trump like he's going to put him down like a rabid dog, Biden could aim for being the disappointed dad who has come to help a wayward child. In my head, Biden, not going for unintelligible anger, tells Trump that it's okay.

The ireactions pastiche of Biden says in his folksy, kindly manner, "It's alright, sir. I understand. I know what this is about. You never wanted to be president. It was just a joke on the golf course. You didn't want to lead the free world; you wanted your name on TV, some attention, some real estate deals. But you won and now you don't know how to do your job. We're putting more on you than you can handle. Demanding something that you don't have to give. I know you feel it. That you're the wrong person in the wrong place. I know you're afraid, son. You're on your way down and you know you're falling and you're scared. I'm here to help. Let me help you find your way out."

Shortly after this, Biden borrows Doc Brown's DeLorean and travels back to 1996 where he gets David Peckinpah into rehab and Peckinpah teams up with Torme to make a slightly more action-oriented Season 3 that appeals to both diehard fans and casual viewers alike.

I'm going to say something controversial. Temporal Flux should never have focused on SLIDERS. He should have been a journalist of the world. And also -- while I think of Transmodiar as the perfect American, I have always thought of TF as the perfect Canadian.

I personally feel that arrests for failing to socially distance are too far. Canada is not arresting people except when they tested positive for COVID-19 or returned from overseas travel but refused to self-quarantine for 14 days. Outside of those obvious health threats to all, Canada is issuing fines for people assembling in large groups. Arresting people crosses the line into actively repressing civil liberties by physical force. Canada is merely making it unaffordable to assemble for the duration of the state of emergency. The prime minister and my premier have contemplated making it arrestable -- but they ultimately decided against force in favour of strong persuasion.

Social distancing is vital right now. No one has the right to spread an incredibly communicable disease that currently has no antiviral and no vaccine. But TF is right to observe that if the pandemic becomes justification for taking the power to arrest people for assembling, that power could remain in place even after the pandemic is past. Even now, there are reports that the NYPD is using enforcement of social distancing as an excuse to accost, harass and assail low-income individuals and people of colour.

https://theintercept.com/2020/04/15/nyp … istancing/

And we've seen it presidentially as well. When Obama was in office, I personally applauded his use of executive power to provide counterterrorism, stimulus, health care and recovery to his nation when congressional gridlock would not permit him to act. But I see now that I was mistaken. Under Obama's stewardship, the executive branch of the president has gained the power to wage war without congressional approval, engage in drone attacks, assassinate globally and secretly, rewrite domestic policy at will -- and that power has remained a part of his office under Trump.

On every level, we need to consider what happens when power, even when in passable hands, could go to someone inclined to use it ineptly and foolishly if not disastrously. The opinions in this post do not represent the views of Sliders.TV, I cannot stress this enough in the name of blah blah blah it's late.