Ahead of the much anticipated debut of Battlestar Galactica’s offshoot, Caprica, SyFy has created an immersive web experience to heighten the buzz. Cleverly presented as a newspaper styled blog, The Caprican delivers all the news worth printing from the 12 colonies. Of course, it’s all done with a very Caprican slant. Growing threats of monotheism and militant religious activists are downplayed. Caprica’s premier magnet school, Athena Academy, gets glowing coverage of its record-setting enrollment. And the C-Bucs latest score in a disappointing season of Pyramid defeats is prominently displayed on the front page. For earthbound agencies hoping to create an online news presence, The Caprican offers a worthy role model: a nice balance of photographs and content, user-friendly design, and plenty of whitespace.

But the most compelling aspect of the site is the social commentary that’s beginning to form around the articles. Those of you familiar with Battlestar’s central themes have already spooled your FTL drives up and jumped ahead. For the less invested among you a summary will suffice.

Cylons, the cybernetic antagonists of the series were created by man. Through scientific hokery pokery they evolved into sentient beings that have the ability to “download” their memories and experiences into a cloned body upon their death. Think reincarnation. Along the way, Cylons have developed a monotheistic philosophy that is distinctly at odds with the beliefs of much of the 12 colonies’ population. The show Caprica predates the reimagined Battlestar Galactica by about 50 years. It answers many questions that BSG’s end-of-series movie didn’t, and it poses others.

The parallels between Caprica’s religious problems and issues we face earthside are undeniable. The mythical planet’s residents share our theistic views. Monotheist, polytheist, atheist and agnostic alike have to reconcile their differences or learn to live with the occasional suicide bombing or bout of ethnic cleansing. It’s an unsavory prospect in either world.

If one chooses to infer real world meaning from the eager scribblings of Caprican’s readers, then recent post-article comments at the site keenly reflect how religion divides us as much as it unites us. Through a fisheye lens, this microcosm of dedicated fans provides an invaluable research tool for SyFy in general and Caprica’s producers specifically. The site’s Terms of Service leave no doubt the network understands the crowdsourcing potential for future plot material.

With the success of 2012 and the insatiable interest in apocalyptic themes (Book of Eli anyone?), it’s easy to accuse SyFy of simply profiting from a current entertainment trend. But with Battlestar Galactica we’ve seen producers Ron Moore and David Eickman handle religion, rape, honor, betrayal and loss with both fierceness and finesse. If the movie premiere of Caprica is an indication, the acting will be on par with if not better than BSG.

Brian Bowman, Public Affairs Officer for Wilson, NC interviewed Burk Uzzle, local resident and youngest Life magazine photographer ever hired. Besides having an eye for absolutely stunning compositions, Uzzle was present after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assasination and at his funeral. One of the photographs he took of Dr. King lying in repose graced the cover of Newsweek. Now, he has decided to show 20 previously unpublished photographs surrounding that moment in history at the Arts Council of Wilson in Wilson, NC.

An excerpt of Bowman’s interview with Mr. Uzzle is airing in this week’s city-produced news show, Around Town. A longer version of the interview is also available on Wilson’s Vimeo channel. If you happen to be in Wilson this month, the Arts Council is exhibiting the photos free of charge until
February 6.

Around Town, Week of January 13, 2010 from City of Wilson, NC on Vimeo.

If you’re as slow as I am and haven’t seen The Plan yet, I won’t spoil it for you. But I will leave you with a beautiful quote from the movie as emoted by #1 (Dean Stockwell):

I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear X-rays and I… I wanna… I wanna smell dark matter. I wanna reach out with something other than these prehensile paws… and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine. And I could know much more.

I’ve been thinking about the “culture of life” this week. No, I’m not heeding Pope Benedict’s enticing (Ha!) call to convert to Catholicism. But the Fort Hood tragedy hilights a difference in how many of us view life, a difference as distinct as the chalk outline around the felled victims.

First reports of the incident claimed 12 dead, a number that eventually rose to 13. Amid the growing facts arising from the initial clamor we learned that 21 year old Iraq veteran Francheska Valez was three months pregnant. All of the victims’ names have not been released, but I expect there will only be 12 more besides Francheska. This continues a long held media policy of not enumerating fetuses with the formerly breathing and walking. To be politically correct, you could say embryos are “birth-challenged”. With the current culture’s view of life and when life begins, many persons in waiting will die that way.

I’m being followed on Twitter by a ton of blues musicians. One of them is bucketofblues1. Bucket of Blues is the album and the musician is Bobby Parris. His website has a 10 track album for sale. Each song is 75 cents. Or you can buy the 10 track album for $10. Multiplication FAIL, Bobby.

My Facebook friends have grown a bit over the past two weeks. I sense it tilting sharply to the right. That’s life I suppose, but some balance (and a few more like minds) would be appreciated.

The thuggish summer heat and barometer-defying humidity have finally hooked up (eharmony, perhaps?). The nuptials and impending moist honeymoon are a month or so late. There’s nothing like walking outside from an air-conditioned room and feeling like you’re pushing through the heavy blanket of a second birth ceremony.

The Science Network has a cool spot with what sounds like Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up running underneath. Ooo look. Who knew Cod attacked octopusses and “death-rolled” their tentacles the way an alligator kills its victim? I’ll never think of fish and chips the same way again.

What kind of society are we left with if we can’t trust journalists to draw coherent inferences. This from an AP “fact check” article regarding Obama’s primetime press conference this evening, emphasis mine.

OBAMA: “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

THE FACTS: The facts are in dispute between black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the white police sergeant who arrested him at his Cambridge, Mass., home when officers went there to investigate a reported break-in. But this much is clear: Gates wasn’t arrested for being in his own home, as Obama implies, but for allegedly being belligerent when the sergeant demanded his identification. The president did mention that the professor was charged with disorderly conduct. Charges were dropped.

How the fuck do the dimwitted reporters writing this drivel arrive at Obama “implying” that Gates was arrested for being in his own home? Beyond being a prime example of yellow journalism, the inference is simply a baffling non-sequitur. And if writers can’t demonstrate a simple grasp of “if A = B, and B = C” logic, they shouldn’t be allowed to write. And the editors that let this shit through should have their favorite Cross writing instrument driven through their nutsacks (or ovary sacks, I’d hate to be accused of sexism).

For example:

Eric –

Recently, Vice President Biden stuck his foot in his mouth again. This time it required surgery to remove it. Thankfully, Joe’s covered by the same healthcare plan that provides hundreds of congressmen and women a safety net in these troubled times. If we’re going to pass legislation to ensure that every American has access to that same level of care, we must act now. Please do your part to help all the Joes across this great country.

DONATE
 

I like a good meme as much as anyone, but honestly I’m wiped. I gave to the campaign, and I am a patient person, but I need to see a bigger return on previous donations before I’m comfy giving up more of my finances. Make no mistake, eight months later I still support the administration and would vote the same way. Maybe we can make a deal. Hire my company to produce the compelling videos you need to win support for your healthcare plan. I can’t promise we’ll donate our services. But I can promise we won’t fill your inbox up asking for future work.

As part of a personal initiative to reduce my consumption of meat, I’ve begun observing “no-meat Wednesdays”. Being a meatatarian nothing tastes or feels like flesh, so it’s a challenge finding worthy protein replacements. Bold tastes and pretty colors help dull the pain. Today’s foodie entry succeeds on all fronts. At heart it’s a frittata, however, I use overeasy eggs instead of an omelette. And here’s the super time-saver tip of the day: The spinach, carrots, and onions were purchased from a grocery store salad bar. Pre-prepped and cheap. 
 

Assemble and prepare your ingredients. Then heat a seasoned omelet pan or spider. Add your choice of oil (enough to coat the pan good, plus some to saute your veggies. Crack your eggs into the hot oil being careful not to break the yokes. Flip the eggs once the whites have set. Cook them on the soft side and carefully remove them to a serving plate.

Add your onions and carrots to the pan, pouring in a little more oil if needed to prevent sticking. Lightly season with your choice of dry seasonings. As always, salt, pepper, and garlic are a great start. But if you wanna get freaky and try some mesquite seasoning, be my guest!

As the onion starts to soften, add the sliced garlic. Stir, then quickly add the spinach to the pan. Toss ingredients as the spinach begins to wilt. Grate a generous sprinkling of fresh nutmeg over the mix. When spinach has reduced and turned bright green, remove all and place over the fried eggs. Top with slivers of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano if you like.

If you cooked your eggs on the soft side, the hot spinach topping should reheat them nicely without overcooking them. Mmm… when that yolk melts over the spinach. Perfection!

So what’s to like? First, it has color, the missing ingredient in primetime television… beautiful browns, high yellows, tans and cafe con cremas! Black, Hispanic, Italian, biracial–damn! Even the white folks look ethnic. And any drama that dares to paint my screen in the colors of my life I will give more than a fighting chance.

Next, the characters have heart. Chief Nursing Officer Christina Hawthorne (Jada Pinkett Smith) gos above and beyond the duties of a nurse. She’s a ridiculous risktaker. She takes medical risks and ethical risks, any of which would be a career ender for normal people. Bur her care for her patients shines through. The rest of her staff is just as caring, if somewhat less daring. There are no sourpusses and no hardasses looking to torture your loved ones when you’re not watching.

Finally, the best quality of the show is that it doesn’t try to be more than it is: a serialized medical drama. In other words, it doesn’t pretend to be the next ER. The technical aspects of medicine take a back seat to the story lines. And the story lines are tried and true: Hawthorne is a widowed mother at odds with her headstrong teenage daughter. Last night’s episode featured a good ole Munchausen by Proxy story arc, and the ever popular “sibling who can’t pull the plug on a brain-dead parent”. Touching. Seriously, it is. After 11 mostly good years of ER, here’s a show that embraces the core mission of any drama: entertainment. This program does not exist to educate. You won’t feel like you’re halfway toward earning your medical degree after watching Hawthorne. It won’t prepare you to discuss the ethics of black on black abuse in Africa, or the inequities of a failing health system… not yet.

That’s why I call it a dramalet. It’s cute and small enough to hide in the shadows of many current dramas. Watch it anyway. I’m not sure what the future of Hawthorne holds for its viewers, but for now it’s a lighthearted, colorful, and totally human drama worth watching.

For an op-ed opinion of the show, visit HollywoodChicago.com.