Last night one of the local PBS stations aired two old Dr Who stories from the late '60s, The Mind Robber, and the Krotons, staring Patrick Troughton, Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines. I'd been under the impression that most of the Second Doctor serials had been lost and was quite pleasantly surprised to see these two delightful stories for the first time. There is so much less pretense and so much more fun than in the current productions. One thing that I really noticed was that the second doctor was playing a slightly befuddled but wise grandfatherly character, which really makes sense. All the modern doctors are played by attractive younger people and the grandfatherly wisdom comes out as strident and juvenile.
William Hartnell, 1908-1975, 1st Doctor 1963-66. age 55-58. He seemed much older
Patrick Troughton 1920-1987, 2nd Doctor 1966-69. age 46-49. He too seemed older
John Pertwee 1919-1996, 3rd Doctor 1970-74. age 51-55.
Tom Baker 1934- 4th Doctor 1974-81. age 40-47.
Peter Davison 1951- 5th Doctor 1981-84. age 30-34. The first young doctor. He pulled it off.
Colin Baker 1943- 6th Doctor, 1984-86 age 41-43.
Sylvester McCoy 1943- 7th Doctor, 1986-89. age 43-46.
Christopher Eccleston 1974- 9th Doctor, 2005. age 31.
David Tennant 1971- 10th Doctor 2005-10, age 34-39. crippled by /terrible/ writing.
Matt Smith 1982- 11th Doctor 2010-14, age 28-31.
Peter Capaldi 1958- 12th Doctor 2014-17, age 56-59
Jodie Whittaker 1982- 13th Doctor, 2017- age 35-
In order of age:
Matt Smith, Peter Davison, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, William Hartnell, Peter Capaldi.
My favorites:
Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, William Hartnell, Sylvester McCoy, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith, Colin Baker.
As far as I'm concerned, Colin Baker killed the show, he was so bad. I'm not sure how much of this was bad writing and how much was the actor and his sidekick, the almost-as-bad Perpugiliam, played by english actress Nicola Bryant pretending, incompetently, to be an American. Sylvester McCoy was way better than Colin Baker, but not better enough to recover. The 21st century reboot has yet to reach the highs of the Tom Baker-Peter Davison era.
14 June 2020
05 June 2020
Impeachments, Near and Far
Three presidents have been impeached, and none have been convicted. There have been quite a few others that nearly earned this distinction.
John Tyler was the first vice president to be elevated to the presidency by death of a president. The constitution left unclear exactly how this elevation would work, and Tyler arrogated all the powers of his predecessor, which alienated his partisan opponents, and vetoed a number of their bills, which alienated them even further. He was also a slave holding southerner, which didn't endear him to the abolitionists in congress. Articles of impeachment were drawn up but were soundly defeated by the full congress.
Andrew Johnson's impeachment was crassly partisan, for violating a law so terrible that it was soon overturned. He was a terrible president and we owe a lot of the horrible race relations of the present time to his idiotic support of the persecution of ex-slaves in the south.
Warren Harding was perhaps an even worse president than Johnson and probably would have been impeached for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal had he not died.
Richard Nixon came the closest to actually being convicted. Articles of Impeachment had been drawn up and it was obvious he was going to go down, so he quit first.
Ronald Reagan unquestionably committed Iran Contra and he probably should have been impeached and removed, but Sen Monyihan judged that his popularity would make that unlikely to succeed and would cause more political strife than it was worth.
Bill Clinton did lie about an affair with Monica Lewinski, but that is nowhere near a high enough crime to justify impeachment. He was impeached but not convicted in a wholly partisan process. The country understood that it was just a show, and voted out many of the perpetrators, but they held the trial during the lame-duck period. As Monyihan had predicted about Reagan's potential impeachment, the broader consequences of the impeachment were far worse than the actual offense.
George W Bush lied us into a war with Iraq and supported torture during that war. After Trump, he was the most deserving of impeachment of any president.
Donald Trump collaborated with Russian leadership numerous times, to get elected, to undermine intelligence, and more. He also has been sabotaging the free press, used the military and foreign aid for partisan purposes, and numerous other crimes. He was deservedly impeached, but he was acquitted--mostly because Trump and his supporters intimidated Republican senators. Sen Collins rightly explained that Trump had learned a lesson from impeachment, but where she'd thought he'd be chastened, he took it as license to do anything he wanted, no matter how criminal or destructive.
03 June 2020
Degrees of Murder
This is mostly intended to pull together the definitions for my own edification.
Murder is the intentional killing of someone. Intentional-ness is defined by statute. Killing someone is not necessarily a crime unless it is defined that way by statute. If you kill someone in self defense or defense of others, it probably not a crime. Feticide (abortion) is not murder unless specifically defined to be by statute.
First degree murder is killing someone with "malice aforethought". The killer intends for their victim to be dead and had enough time to consider the ramifications of what they were doing. If the killing took place during the commission of another felony, it is sometimes considered first degree, although under some circumstances it's voluntary manslaughter.
Second degree murder is killing someone in the heat of action, without forethought. For example a bar room brawl. The killer may have meant to kill the victim at that moment, but had they had a chance to consider they would probably not have done it.
Voluntary manslaughter is mainly reserved for crimes of passion and for unplanned murders committed during another felony. It used to be second degree murder but in recent years a distinction has been made. The standard example is discovering your spouse with another lover and killing them on the spot.
Killing someone (usually second degree murder but also manslaughter) with depraved indifference is acting in a way that is the killer knows is likely to bring about death, but not specifically intending to kill the person.
Third degree murder is only defined by a few states: MN, PA and FL. It is basically the same thing as murder with depraved indifference.
Involuntary Manslaughter is the accidental killing of someone while acting in a reckless but not felonious way. There is no intent or malice, either aforethought or otherwise. Negligent homicide is essentially the same thing.
It's pretty clear that third degree murder is actually the correct charge for at least some of what happened to George Floyd. I suspect a lot of the outrage is that most states don't define the crime and people don't understand what it is. More seriously though, bystanders were yelling at Mr. Chauvin that he was killing him, yet he continued to compress Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly 9 minutes, while he was handcuffed, including a few minutes after he'd passed out from asphyxiation. I think it became first degree murder somewhere around 3 minutes into this. I've watched quite a few videos, including one that showed the police arrival at the scene. Mr. Floyd never did anything in any way violent or threatening, although he was clearly upset at being arrested, which is pretty understandable. He may have said something threatening and he was a very big, strong guy, so there might be some possible justification in acting defensively, but once he was handcuffed and on the ground, the threat was over, especially since there were 3 other cops on the scene. Ten seconds of knee on neck would have been ample, even had Mr. Floyd been acting violently, which he wasn't.
Murder is the intentional killing of someone. Intentional-ness is defined by statute. Killing someone is not necessarily a crime unless it is defined that way by statute. If you kill someone in self defense or defense of others, it probably not a crime. Feticide (abortion) is not murder unless specifically defined to be by statute.
First degree murder is killing someone with "malice aforethought". The killer intends for their victim to be dead and had enough time to consider the ramifications of what they were doing. If the killing took place during the commission of another felony, it is sometimes considered first degree, although under some circumstances it's voluntary manslaughter.
Second degree murder is killing someone in the heat of action, without forethought. For example a bar room brawl. The killer may have meant to kill the victim at that moment, but had they had a chance to consider they would probably not have done it.
Voluntary manslaughter is mainly reserved for crimes of passion and for unplanned murders committed during another felony. It used to be second degree murder but in recent years a distinction has been made. The standard example is discovering your spouse with another lover and killing them on the spot.
Killing someone (usually second degree murder but also manslaughter) with depraved indifference is acting in a way that is the killer knows is likely to bring about death, but not specifically intending to kill the person.
Third degree murder is only defined by a few states: MN, PA and FL. It is basically the same thing as murder with depraved indifference.
Involuntary Manslaughter is the accidental killing of someone while acting in a reckless but not felonious way. There is no intent or malice, either aforethought or otherwise. Negligent homicide is essentially the same thing.
It's pretty clear that third degree murder is actually the correct charge for at least some of what happened to George Floyd. I suspect a lot of the outrage is that most states don't define the crime and people don't understand what it is. More seriously though, bystanders were yelling at Mr. Chauvin that he was killing him, yet he continued to compress Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly 9 minutes, while he was handcuffed, including a few minutes after he'd passed out from asphyxiation. I think it became first degree murder somewhere around 3 minutes into this. I've watched quite a few videos, including one that showed the police arrival at the scene. Mr. Floyd never did anything in any way violent or threatening, although he was clearly upset at being arrested, which is pretty understandable. He may have said something threatening and he was a very big, strong guy, so there might be some possible justification in acting defensively, but once he was handcuffed and on the ground, the threat was over, especially since there were 3 other cops on the scene. Ten seconds of knee on neck would have been ample, even had Mr. Floyd been acting violently, which he wasn't.
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