This show is starting to sink into a disturbing trend of having a great over-arching story (Eli and his visions) and enfuriating self-contained stories (namely, the cort cases). After the episode about the soldier of five years who milked the country for money until they asked her to do her job AS a soldier, and she sued for release (see my review here: ), I didn't think this show could piss me off more.

Then they do this show. As soon as they said the girl was in trouble for interrupting a school assembly on abstinence, I knew there was going to be problems. First of all, the girl knew damn well that what she was doing was against the rules. She knew she would get in trouble. She did it anyway. Then she decided to moan about the punishment. That's crap already.

Then they get to court, and the start rambling off these heavy-handed leftist "facts" that are total lies. She starts by talking about how the abstinence assemblies are about "never having sex." Not true. They're about waiting. They're about discouraging teens, who are not only not legally allowed to have sex, but are unready and ill-prepared for the possible consequences, from having sex. Waiting until you're ready is not "never." And I'm sick and tired of people acting like it's impossible to wait, it's impossible to EXPECT anyone to wait, and that's it's just some completely inevitable thing that kids are going to have sex, so you might as well just throw your hands up, toss some rubbers at them and tell them to have a good time. When the hell did people stop having any faith in their kids?

Then they get into the court claims that the seminars teach that contraception doesn't work. Not true. They teach that abstinence is the only contraception that works 100% of the time. That even if you use a condom, it is still possible to get pregnant or catch a STD. And that's true. Then she states that that kids who are in abstinence programs are less likely to use contraception. Bull crap. Totally made up. Then they ask her how she's been affected by the seminars, and she lists here friends who have gotten pregnant, or got STD's. Here's the thing: there were four pregnancies in my graduation class, NONE of whom had ever attended an abstinence course. There were at least three with STD's. Again, no abstinence course. Alright, so her friend got pregnant, and the other one got the clap. That doesn't mean those thing wouldn't have happened had the abstinence assembly not been held.

Then Michaels takes the stand and reiterates what she said. I sometimes wonder if the people writing this crap have ever actually ATTENDED one of the assemblies they so viciously rally against. The point isn't that "condoms don't work." The point is that "condoms can fail" and "abstinence is the ONLY thing that always works." And it's true. Condoms can rip. They can tear. They can leak. It is not only POSSIBLE that they fail, they DO fail. It happens every day. Yes, they are very effective. Yes, the VAST majority of the time, they do their job. But I'm sick of hearing "how can I be pregnant? I don't understand, I used a condom!" or worse, "I should be able to have an abortion because I was responsible and used protection." The problem (and this part is key, so please, pay attention), is that when condoms are the main focus of sex ed, the signal that is sent is "go ahead, have sex, it's fine, don't give it a second thought, just wear a condom, and you'll be fine!" No addressing how much it can change a young person's life. No mention of the drama it tends to bring, but worst of all, it takes away the very real need to consider the very real consequences that are possible every time you have sex, protection or not. Consequences that no one is ready to face in high school.

And that's what it all comes down to: consequences. The girl did something she wasn't supposed to, and when the consequences rolled away, she insisted that she shouldn't have to face them.

And that attitude is exactly why it's so important to teach both abstinence and that condoms can fail.

For the past serveral years, I've had a subscription to Net Flix. Although their policy of "throttling" is infuriating, I have loved it. One of the thing's I've done is create four seperate Ques, each of which has a different theme to it. One of these is the "TVQ" as I call it. The TVQ contains a full TV series on DVD. I get a couple discs a week, which comes out to 4-8 episodes.

When I was a kid, I was a Treky. Not a Trekker, mind you. A Trekker is your average person who just happens to be a big fan of Star Trek. No, I was a Treky. I had the uniform, I knew a little bit of Klingon. I was in a club. Yea, it was bad. When I hit 16, I got a job, and from there on out, Keeping up with my favorite shows became harder to do. VCR's were MUCH less reliable than TiVos. So, around season 2 of Voyager, I just kind of lost lost track.

And so, a year or so ago, I decided that I was going to catch up. I was going to watch all the Star Trek that I had missed out on. Now that the franchise is, for the most part, dead (yes, I know about the new movie coming up, but I've not heard anything about at T.V. show), I can actually get completely caught up, so I figured why not. I began with DS9, (I saw every episode of Next Gen a hundred times back in the day) which ended up becoming my favorite of the various franchises. Next Gen was what got me hooked, but there was just something about DS9 that was...I dunno...personal. You just really got attached to those characters.

Tonight, I watched the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager. I can't say that it was as good as DS9 or TNG, but I will say that I think it was under-rated. I think it got a bad rap because it started about half way through DS9, and kind of existed in the shadow of that and Next Gen. But, by itself, it was a really good series. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Next up: :::shudder::: Enterprise. I watched a few episodes of this when it started. It seemed pretty lame, for a number of reasons, not least of which was that it was about a starship name Enterprise, despite the fact that it had been well established in Trek-lore that Kirk/Pike's enterprise was the first. Besides that I remember gratuitous cheesecake shots of the Vulcan chick, and just overal..."badness." Still, I promised myself I would watch all of it, and watch all of it I shall.