Outside the Government: The Man Who Never Was
Outside the Government: The Man Who Never Was
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2 years, 4 months ago
It’s October 17th, 2011. Rihanna is still stuck in a hopeless place. Maroon 5, Christina Perri, LMFAO, and One Direction also chart. In news, Liam Fox resigns as defense secretary, Occupy London starts up outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Israel and Hamas engage in a prisoner swap at a ratio of roughly 1027:1.&While on television, it’s the end of The Sarah Jane Adventures with The Man Who Never Was. Let’s start by reminding ourselves what The Sarah Jane Adventures was. Not just what it strove to be - an intergenerational celebration of Doctor Who’s effect on children. But what it was, which is to say, a consistently well-made piece of children’s drama that was watchable and enjoyable by adults. This used to be one of the UK’s great cultural exports. Now television is essentially devoid of any shows comparable to The Sarah Jane Adventures that aren’t animated, and most of the animated ones aren’t British. It’s a show that boldly held the line on an important sort of television that’s tragically faded from popularity, and its existence and the effort put into making it good was one of the things that the BBC could point to and sincerely, honestly say “look, see, we’re not just another commercial television station, we’re a public good.” At its best, it’s a series that took its audience seriously, treated them with respect, and was unafraid to tell emotionally honest stories about difficult and complex topics. At its worst, it was at least usually all good fun.&It’s not, I assume, a surprise to anyone reading at this point that I strongly consider Gareth Roberts the best writer that the series had. I’ll admit to not being completely unbiased here - Roberts is at this point one of those sorts of casual Internet friends one acquires via things like Twitter. We’ve e-mailed a couple of times, he follows the blog. It’s also the case that I genuinely like his work and look forward to his episodes of things, and that I really do think he was consistently one of the strongest arrows in The Sarah Jane Adventures’ quiver. So it’s a fortunate thing that he’s the one who writes the finale.&It’s an even more fortunate thing that it’s one of his best scripts for anything, ever. There are a load of good things about it. Many are the sorts of things one expects from The Sarah Jane Adventures. The story is, at least in part, about Luke and Sky finally and properly meeting. It handles this well, acknowledging the difficulty and complexity of acquiring a sibling, especially via the foster system, which is at least ostensibly how Sarah Jane adopted Sky. Which is a real thing - there are genuinely unique challenges to forming a sibling relationship with someone who you meet at age twelve as opposed to meet as an infant and watch grow up. The resulting relationships are not lesser sibling relationships, but they have their own unique features, and The Man Who Never Was does a genuinely lovely job of acknowledging that.&Despite having an unusually large cast, everybody gets something to do here in a nice way. The sense that Clyde and Rani are steadily headed towards a relationship gets nicely and satisfyingly reinforced, Sarah Jane gets to movingly and interestingly be a parent, her skill as a journalist is acknowledged, K-9 gets a nod without appearing, the Mr. Smith/K-9 rivalry is similarly mentioned, and, of course, Luke and Sky get loads of good scenes. (And thank God Luke happened to be in the final episode, incidentally.)&And then there’s the actual plot, which is just marvelous. It starts by looking like a Doctor Who cliche - aliens are releasing some sort of computer that, we (and everyone within the story) assume, is going to, once everybody buys it, do some terrible alien mind control thing. Instead, however, the scheme turns out to be an ordinary human who’s using some stolen alien technology and some aliens he’s enslaved and is torturing to create a spokesperson with hypnotic capabilities, which he plans to use to get people to buy a crappy and cheaply made laptop and make a lot of money. That’s his only goal - use slave labor to make a lot of money.&This is all done very well. The banal evil of his scheme is milked nicely, played out as a reveal that’s both subversively funny and properly disturbing. The sheer evil of slavery is displayed in a way that’s both unflinching and still fundamentally light and children’s television appropriate. Luke gets a lovely bit pointing out that slavery transcends culture, that the consensus that it’s evil is historically recent, and that it’s still going on. Lots of characters, most importantly Sky and Adriana, a janitor who, in the first episode, appears like she’s going to be a relatively typical “eaten by monsters in the pre-credits” character, but who comes back in the second full of righteous anger at the injustice she’s seen. (And how marvelous that it’s a janitor, that is, someone with as shitty and exploitative a job as exists.) It’s a story with its heart in the right place that lands its punches where it wants them to land, and ends up feeling like a proper heir to Robert Holmes at his absolute best. It’s a stirring, beautiful reminder of why The Sarah Jane Adventures exists.&And it ends, as it has to, with a montage and voiceover wrapping up the series. The voiceover, if you’re paying attention, is obviously cobbled together from past episodes, but it hangs together well enough, reiterating many of the series’ favorite themes. The montage is a sweet reminder of all the things the show did, silly and brilliant. The final text, “And the story continues… forever,” is absolutely perfect, and hits the note it really has to, which is to differentiate between Lis Sladen and Sarah Jane, and to remind children that while it’s very sad that they can’t make The Sarah Jane Adventures anymore and that Lis Sladen is gone, there’s always room for more Sarah Jane stories in the world. Which is an important thing to say, and is, frankly, a better commentary on death than anything Miracle Day had to contribute. (And it is simultaneously lovely and creepy that the enslaved aliens from this story, the Skullions, are mentioned off-handedly in an episode of Miracle Day.)&So here ends The Sarah Jane Adventures. A somewhat obscure bit of Doctor Who’s history, but one worth loving and celebrating. Of the two Davies-era spinoffs, it is, on the whole, the better one. At its best it was surprisingly brilliant, and at its worst it was never really too offensive. It celebrated things worth celebrating, both in the stories it tackled and in its embrace of the long and beautiful legacy of Doctor Who. It ended too soon. And it was fantastic.&
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Recent PostsAdoption Horror - True StoryUpdated on October 15, 2009
Love Does Not Conquer AllMy first husband, David and I got married and had a child. So far, so good. Then my savior complex kicked in and I decided that adopting a child that was a "throw away kid" would make a difference in the world.
My husband and I were deeply in love with each other and our two year old, towed headed, blue eyed son. I would not have any more children when I found out that I carry the DNA for myotonic muscular dystrophy and that my son had inherited the gene. It is a disease that causes learning disabilities and slow degeneration of the the muscles, there are other issues but this story is not about that. This story is about Holly.
At two years old, Brendan was precious and we wanted him to have a sibling. My husband wanted a girl so a girl it was to be. We applied to the Department of Children and Families, went to classes and through interviews, physicals and home inspections and were finally approved to adopt.
Right after that our case worker told us that there was a little girl, six years old, that had no siblings and was free for adoption. In other words, her parents gave her away. She was little, cute and soon to be our worst nightmare.
When she came to live in our house, Brendan broke his arm, fell in the tub, and was sexually abused. Yes, Holly was involved in all of these things.
After Brendan's second fall I told her to leave him alone and to never touch him again. She did not listen.
Some of the other things she did at 6 years old was skip school - she would hide behind the bushes around the neighbors house and sneak back in the house after I left for work, she always wanted to walk to school - She hurt Brendan and started sexually abusing him from the very beginning.
She ruined our marriage, our child and our lives. She had been abused herself and in turn abused him. She needed to be in a home with no other children.
David and I were young and each of us thought the other was the better parent for her.
We both suffered.
David developed narcolepsy and I, migraines.
He was never much of a conversationalist and got worse, when I needed to talk most.
I am a communicator and he wanted to watch TV, not deal with our issues.
I am ashamed to admit it but I did start an emotional, if not sexual relationship, with another man.
We lived this way for 6 years, 6 of the worst years of my life.
Holly was jealous of my helping Brendan with his homework and he needed help, with the learning disabilities.
She would make him "pay" by hurting him and telling him she would kill him and run away before I found out.
I did not know this was going on until my mother baby sat for me New Year's Eve. New Year's Day, she told me that Holly had Brendan at knife point making him perform cunnilingus.
David had already left home.
My friend stayed all night.
He locked my bedroom door with Brendan and I behind it and slept on the floor in front of it.
All this time we had been seeing a family counselor who had dismissed us as "cured" three weeks earlier.
When I called her she told me to get Holly out of the house and not let her back in.
I went to her school the next day and took her straight to a mental health facility.
She then told the counselors there that she learned the behavior from her father and I and her aunt let her watch porn.
David decided that I didn't want him and now I didn't want her.
She had to be separated from Brendan for good and I told David he had to take her.
He admitted her to another place, a wilderness camp for girls, she was there for 2 years.
They let her out and she immediately abused another child that was learning disabled.
Dave took her to a friend of hers house.
The mother was going to save her.
The mother took her to another mental facility within 3 weeks, another sexual abuse had taken place.
David had been called since he was her custodial parent.
He was going on vacation and told them to call me.
She had told them I was a terrible alcoholic and physically abusive.
When I got there that same day, they were at their wits end.
She was diagnosed bipolar and put on lithium.
Then she was diagnosed a sociopathic sexual predator.
That is when I tried to rescind the adoption.
David also wanted to rescind.
The courts will not parents to rescind because if a parent died, the child would still inherit.
I had a will made.
These are but a few things we endured during this period.
I am not saying don't adopt these kids, I am saying follow your heart.
My heart screamed "NO" from the beginning.
My deep sense of responsibility kept me in this situation.
Luckily, I do not feel responsible for everything in the world anymore and I know that love does not conquer all.
She is now 29 years old, still calls and has 5 children, one of which she abandoned.
We have tried to help her, gave her our son's life and ours.
Now we are a broken family and Brendan is 26 and a dope addict who will not work nor get help.
i don't know where he is right now and neither does his Dad.
He will turn up, we hope alive.
by wwriter
by Brenda Barnes
by Kyrsha Seymour
by Nell Rose
by Kim Bryan
by Barbara Radisavljevic
by Kim Bryan
Please rate this article using the scale below. The scale is from 1 to 10, where 10 is the best and 1 is the worst.How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies - Suburban TurmoilSuburban Turmoil
posted by Lindsay Ferrier
How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies
Every summer, I end up with at least one fruit fly infestation, and for years, I thought there was no easy way to get rid of fruit flies.
It starts out innocently enough &#8212; I&#8217;ll notice a fruit fly or two buzzing around a bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter. They&#8217;re annoying, but harmless. In a few days, though, the fruit flies have multiplied. Give them a week or two, and you end up with an entire fruit fly village in your home, buzzing in your face, dive bombing your end-of-the-day glass of Chardonnay, and generally making life unbearable.
Fortunately, an online friend told me years ago how to get rid of fruit flies, easily, cheaply, safely, and EFFECTIVELY. Here&#8217;s the recipe:
First, take a wide mouth jar and fill it 1/2 &# of the way full with apple cider vinegar. (No other vinegar will work, btw. It has to be apple cider vinegar.)
Add a few drops of dish soap, then fill the rest of the jar with water until the bubbles reach the rim of the jar.
Finally, in the words of my lovely friend&#8230;. WATCH THE CARNAGE.
If you leave that jar alone for a few hours, the fruit flies will come. TRUST ME. THEY WILL COME. Check it:
Sorry, my little winged friends. No one ever said life was fair.
Drawn by the scent of the vinegar, the fruit flies get caught in the bubbles and die. When the bubbles disappear, dump some of it out and fill it with a little more water. Keep changing out your jar periodically until they&#8217;re all gone &#8212; It&#8217;ll generally take between 24 and 48 hours to get rid of all of them.
You&#8217;ll probably be amazed by how many fruit flies you had in the house. It&#8217;s disgusting and yet strangely satisfying to count how many fill your jar at the end of the day. And it&#8217;s a HUGE relief to eat and drink in peace again, without worrying that a fruit fly is going to ruin your meal.
If you liked this post, be sure to check out
-And if you want more great tips and entertainment,
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