#the prisons cities and new babylon are the only built spaces and all of them are explictily impossible spaces

[planet4546b]

list of fucked up places that are the same to me and are also my best friends:

the zone roadside picnic

area x annihilation

the black hole interstellar

the beach at the end of contact (book, ive never seen the movie)

piranesi’s imaginary prisons

the pale disco elysium

most of the cities in invisible cities italo calvino

the zero kentucky route zero

constant's new babylon

the forest at the end of outer wilds

the titular mar internum in mar internum

the cave in caver ted

[antimatterpod]

Transcript - 70. Clinton-Era Star Trek

Liz: And why are we passing up an opportunity to criticize Rick Berman? We love that shit!

Anika: Let's always criticize Rick. Definitely everything wrong is Rick Berman.

You can listen to the original episode here.

Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz, and Cali the cat. This week we're discussing the pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager, "Caretaker".

Liz: So it's the 35th anniversary or something. No, that cannot possibly be it. 25th?

Anika: 30th. 30, isn't it?

Liz: No, I was thirteen when I first saw it, and I'm thirty-eight going on thirty-nine. So it's got to be the 20th. Right? No, 25th...

Anika: No, it's definitely not -- um, it could be 25th. Because the 20th, I did a panel for the 20th. And that was probably five or six years ago?

Liz: I feel like 1996 plus 25 might be 2021?

Anika: I don't know! Math!

Liz: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, the podcast where we don't do maths.

It's the 25th anniversary of "Caretaker", and I'm really really curious to know, when was the first time you watched it?

Anika: I don't remember! I remember watching "Emissary". I did not see "Encounter at Farpoint" first, I saw it, years after having seen Next Generation.

Liz: Which is really the way to do it.

Anika: Yes. And Enterprise, also, I have no actual memory of watching the pilot, but I probably did. I probably watched Voyager and Enterprise live, but I don't actually have a good handle on it. If it was 1995, I was -- yeah, I didn't have a Star Trek group at that point. I was in college, you know, so I was, like, making new friends.

Liz: You weren't ready to unleash the full force of your geekiness?

Anika: Yup. I mean, I was a ridiculous person, you know, there's no way that I wouldn't have been known as a geek by pretty much everyone.

Liz: I actually have very vivid memories of the first time I watched "Caretaker", because I received it on VHS as a Christmas present the year I was thirteen. I really remember how much I liked Janeway, and I wished -- like Kate Mulgrew has a very unusual voice, and that was sort of everyone in the family's reaction. And I'm like, Yeah, it's a weird voice, but I love her, shut up.

And the next day my parents' marriage ended, so...

Anika: Wow. Okay!

Liz: I don't think these things are really connected. But in my mind, and in my heart, they very much are.

Star Trek wasn't really my main fandom at the time. TNG had ended, and I was very deep into having feelings about seaQuest DSV. So -- there are probably still dozens of us.

Anika: I loved that show.

Liz: It was so great. We could talk about my OTP for seaQuest next. But yeah, that was my first encounter with Voyager, and I didn't really become a capital letters Voyager Fan until a few months later, when we accidentally got season two videos.

Anika: Accidentally. Yeah, I don't know. It's a good pilot episode. Not a good episode.

Liz: I want you to expand on that.

Anika: So the thing about pilots is, there are very few good ones out there. It's really hard to introduce a show in a way that isn't cliched, and isn't, like, a bunch of people expositing about everything you need to know about them to each other. It's a -- it's hard. It's hard to do it well.

Liz: Yes. If you want to see a bad pilot, I highly recommend the pilot for Babylon 5. It is unwatchably bad.

Anika: Voyager still has plenty of pilot problems, like, "Caretaker" still has plenty of pilot problems, but they cover a huge amount of ground. They introduce so many things, and when you think about all of the stuff that has to happen in this episode versus, say, "Encounter at Farpoint", which is really just a bunch of people introducing themselves to each other -- that's literally all that happens in "Encounter at Farpoint".

Liz: And not even by name.

Anika: And then Riker watches what happened in the opening scene? I mean, that is a terrible, terrible pilot, and a terrible episode.

Liz: My friend and their partner have decided to start with Star Trek at "Encounter at Farpoint". And I'm like, I love you. You are good people. You don't deserve this.

Anika: Don't do it! No.

But -- so what I like about "Caretaker" is that everyone except B'Elanna -- and I will tell you more about that in a little bit. But everyone except B'Elanna has an introduction that is not them introducing themselves to each other. Or to the audience. They don't stand and say, "Hello, I am Harry Kim."

There's like little bits and pieces, like the -- what we learned about Harry Kim is what Janeway says about him to Tuvok, you know. What we learn about Tom Paris is that, you know, he's in prison. And the first time we see Janeway is Tom looking up at her, and it pans up and she's got her hands on her hips. And she's like, "Hey, I'm totally in charge, and I'm here with Obi Wan Kenobi to rescue you."

So it does pilot things. We get that there is tension between everyone and Tom Paris, like, literally everyone and Tom Paris, there is tension. And we get that there is tension between the Maquis and the Starfleet people, we get that Janeway and Tuvok have a very close, established relationship. Like, there's a lot of established stuff going on?

The Janeway and Tuvok stuff is so much better than the Picard and Crusher stuff, like, I can't even -- they're worlds apart in terms of how they play.

Liz: And not just because the language of setting up a platonic friendship between a man and a woman is different from setting up a romantic tension. Seven years have passed, and the writing is different. And Janeway -- the woman is the one in a dominant position. And it's just better.

Anika: It's just better, it's just better. But the actual story is not. Like, the whole Caretaker thing, it's clearly a plot device, it's very deus ex machina for "we have to get them lost in the Delta Quadrant. Like, we have to get them to the Delta Quadrant, and then we have to get them lost here."

And so, while it is entirely Janeway's choice, she's the only one with agency. She takes it away from everyone else. There's no meeting to discuss any of these things. And it's all very driven by this "there was, a guy, an ancient guy who, like, steals people and keeps them as pets. And his favorite people, like, he needs to" -- it's just ridiculous. Like, he's seeding himself so that someone -- so his child will be stuck with this horrible job of taking care of his ant farm of Ocampa.

Everything about it is bad. Like, nothing in that whole story is good. He's a bad person. And it's so wildly ridiculous. Like, he dies before they can even begin to understand how any of it happened? Like, they just blow up the array?

Liz: It's sort of like the writers going, "Oh, shit, we really don't want to ask too many questions about this guy, we'd better kill him as fast as we can."

Anika: Exactly. So. So if you start to think about this story at all… Being a pilot that introduces you to these characters and this situation, it's bad. But if you're just watching to be introduced to these characters and this situation, it's good.

Liz: I have never thought about it in those terms until you said this in our preparation, but I think that's a really, really good point.

And I'm going to confess that I have not re-watched "Caretaker" to prepare for this episode because I have seen it so many times, I can quote big chunks of it by heart. And, honestly, it's actually not that rewatchable. Deep Space Nine is not my favorite Trek, but I have seen "Emissary" so many times, and I enjoy it every single time. After a while, watching "Caretaker" starts to feel like a chore.

Anika: Yeah, because what's actually happening is not interesting.

Liz: Yeah, yeah.

Anika: And it's just full of holes, and I just get mad at everybody if I start thinking about it.

Liz: That's before we get into the bit where the Kazon exist.

Anika: Oh, the Kazon. They tried so hard to make the Kazon happen. And it just never happened.

Liz: Re-watching season two for my blog, I was struck by the fact that, with a different writing team, the Kazon could have been really fascinating and nuanced and interesting. And instead, it's basically white people having a moral panic about Black people. You know, they explicitly said that the Kazon were, like, "They're based on East Los Angeles area gangs!" And I'm like, Sure, okay. That's potentially interesting, but you're all white people. And, you know, we find out that thirty years ago, they freed themselves from slavery. And that's why the--

Anika: Thirty years!

Liz: I know! I know! That is my own lifetime! [But] that's why they're low tech and dysfunctional and desperate. And they're not given even an ounce of empathy, or sympathy, or even consideration. Even "Initiations", which I think is a good episode, and certainly, by far the best Kazon episode, there's just -- there's one good Kazon, and that's it.

And I do think part of the problem is that we never see their women, we never see them in any situation other than hostility. But mostly, I think the problem is that the writers are racist.

Anika: And the one good Kazon is a kid.

Liz: Yeah, yes.

Anika: It's almost like it's like a white savior -- or a Chakotay savior story, you know, like, Dangerous Minds--

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: -- where Michelle Pfeiffer goes into the inner city to save it.

Liz: The mental image of Chakotay as Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing. And yeah, that is a really messed up genre, and the only good thing it ever gave us was "Gangsta's Paradise".

So, yeah, that limitation in the perception of the Kazon is built right there into this pilot. And a lot of people go, you know, "It's so stupid how they have spaceships and they don't make -- they can't replicate or create their own water." And it's like, this would have been a great opportunity to explain some of their history instead of going, "Surprise! It's actually really racist!" a season later.

Anika: Yep. It's just really bad. Everything's bad about the Kazon. They're not great. They're not good villains. And anything -- every time they are almost interesting, they're almost instantly not interesting and/or racist at the same time.

Liz: It troubles me that the series with the first female captain is also the first series where sexism and misogyny are treated as anything other than a joke. We've had the Ferengi for years, and it's always been, "Haha, they like women to be naked." And it's only now that suddenly these writers are forced to empathize with a female character, that they're like, "Oh, maybe that attitude is ... bad?"

Anika: Maybe it's bad. We never see a Kazon woman.

Liz: Right, are they living in -- is it a Kazon Handmaid's Tale thing? Or are they warriors in their own right? Do they have their own politics? Are they trying to pull the strings from the background and maybe doing so more successfully than Seska because they're further in the background? We don't know. We'll never know.

Are we the only people who look at Star Trek and go, but what if the Kazon came back?

Anika: So we're definitely the only people who look at Star Trek and think, what if the Kazon came back?

But Cullah was almost an interesting character. And, really, the most interesting he ever was was when he took the baby, and, like, cared. That he cared about any of that happening, that he cared about Seska dying. It was like, Oh, my gosh, this is a real relationship all of a sudden. So it's just interesting. And they had a lot of interesting Macbeth scenes that were fun, that could have been so much better if they'd leaned into that instead of what they did.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: But we're we're getting beyond the scope, because we're supposed to be talking about "Caretaker", and Cullah is not even in it

Liz: Turns out we could do a whole episode on the Kazon

Anika: Whoops!

Liz: That's really gonna get the listeners.

Anika: Let's talk about our first impressions of the crew.

Liz: So the scene where Tom looks up, and there's Kathryn Janeway with her bun of steel and her hands on her hips, and, you know, in her very first scene, she tells us that she was a scientist before she was a captain. I fell in love.

And yet, the pilot is really eager to tell us that just because she's a woman in command doesn't mean she's ... not a woman.

Anika: She has the world's most boring fiance.

Liz: Oh my God.

Anika: I hate -- like, my favorite part is that they're talking, they're facetiming on the viewscreen and all, and she's lliterally doing work while talking to him. Like, this is the last -- and they don't know that it's gonna be the last time for seven years, or whatever, but it's still gonna be months. And yet, she's just doing her work, and he has to tell her to look at him, which is hilarious. But he's also -- he's so milquetoast, I don't care.

Liz: He's just sort of your standard extruded Star Trek male love interest.

Anika: And then there's puppies. She loves her dog.

Liz: She loves her dog. She likes to be called ma'am rather than sir. It's a very 1990s "don't be too threatened" scenario, which is interesting, because you contrast that with Major Kira, who, I think, as the second lead, rather than the primary lead of the show, has more freedom to be abrasive, and unlikable, and unfeminine.

Anika: Yeah. But even in Deep Space Nine, like, Jadzia is super feminine. In presentation, at least, and the more it goes on, she gets -- the more they were like, "Don't worry, we also have this pretty one." Like, Nana Visitor is gorgeous, just, you know, don't yell at me. But--

Liz: After the pilot episode, she went and cut off her hair into -- it's not even a pixie cut. It's a really butch style. And she did that without getting the permission of the producers. She was just, like, that's how Major Kira would have her hair.

And then, over the next seven seasons, they worked really, really hard to force Kira into a feminine mold.

Anika: You're right, they absolutely do it to Janeway [too]. She has that whole Jane Eyre holoprogram thing that -- everything she does in her free time is, like, from the 19th century. It's just very weird. She's super old fashioned in her forward thinking scientist future ladyness.

Liz: I think a lot of that is down to Jeri Taylor, and the fact that she was already, for the '90s, older than the generation of feminists who were defining the movement at the time. I realized once that she's only a year younger than DC Fontana.

Anika: It's interesting. Kate Mulgrew was forty when she started Voyager, but according to apocrypha, she was playing five years younger, like, she's not supposed to be forty.

Liz: No, I've heard that too, that Janeway was meant to be about thirty-five. Which, I mean, I guess? Maybe?

Anika: [What that] means is that she is admiral super young. That's what I take out of it. So good on her. It's just weird. It's like, why? I don't know. It's just very Hollywood. It's very, "Oh my gosh, we can't have a forty-something woman in a starring role. We can't possibly do that. So, okay, we got this one and, and we're gonna go with her, but she's not really forty. You can still be attracted to her. You're allowed, everybody."

Liz: You know, "We've got her in a corset so she's thin, and she's in high heels so she's tall and she'll walk in a sexy way."

It really struck me, the first time I watched Discovery, the first time I watched "The Vulcan Hello", how feminine and comfortable Michelle Yeoh looked with her hair in a ponytail -- and it's a very loose ponytail -- and she's wearing flats. I was like, Oh my god, this is what Janeway could have been.

Anika: Right.

Liz: Now, I know that the next character on our list is Chakotay, but I think we should talk about Tom, because he and Harry the POV characters for this pilot. It's sort of telling that Chakotay is sidelined from the beginning.

Anika: I always say that there are three co-protagonists in this pilot. Tom, Janeway, and Kes are the people who have a point of view and an arc.

Liz: Yeah, you're right.

Anika: And everybody else is just sort of in their orbit.

Liz: Even Kes barely has agency.

Anika: It's a giant cast, so they couldn't -- and again, B'Elanna is not -- like, the B'Elanna that I know and love is not in this pilot. She's just not even actually there. There is a B'Elanna in this pilot, but it is not even close to who she is. And she's barely on screen. She's just an angry Klingon lady, that's all she is.

Liz: Who almost flashes her whole boob in one scene.

Anika: But she immediately -- like, the very next episode is a B'Elanna episode. So it's sort of like, "We didn't put any effort into her in the pilot, because we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have a whole episode about her. It's gonna be okay." And it's great, "Parallax" is a way better story.

Liz: Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily a bad choice. That's like Discovery taking six episodes to introduce it's whole cast. And I think B'Elanna is better served by that, but it's interesting how objectified she is in this story.

Anika: Yes.

Liz: To get back to Tom, I listened to the Delta Fliers episode on "Caretaker" when it came out. I'm sort of at peak Star Trek podcast, so I've gotten behind on them. But that's Robert Duncan McNeill and Garrett Wang talking about their memories of each episode. And--

Anika: It's very fun.

Liz: --among the things that I enjoyed were Robert Duncan McNeill calling himself out for how sleazy Tom is towards women, particularly Janeway. But he blames himself and I'm like, I'm pretty sure you are following a script, dude. Like, this is not your responsibility.

But also, he says at one point that Tom Paris was considered as a potential love interest for Janeway, and that they were going to cast someone older for the role.

Anika: I've been saying that since the beginning. Janeway and Paris, as we all know, are my OTP of Voyager. And I'm not off that! I ship that! Like, I ship literally everything. But it's always going to be -- Janeway and Paris are going to be the most important to me, in terms of Voyager characters, just partly because, again, I was, what, 20? And I -- not even--

Liz: Yep.

Anika: It was formative, you know, it's like, I loved Voyager so much, and I loved Janeway and Paris. The first fan fiction that I read and wrote was Janeway and Paris. Iit's just gonna be them.

And so the idea that they were ever considered, quote, unquote, canon, it just makes me feel like I wasn't a crazy person reading into the entire first two seasons.

Liz: No.

Anika: I firmly believe that you can see a relationship behind the scenes in the -- you know, up until he starts having a thing with B'Elanna.

Liz: No, in fact, there's a point in season two where Robbie is like, "I think this is around the time they stopped pushing Janeway and Paris and started moving towards Janeway and Chakotay."

I found that really interesting, because the other thing that we know about the development of Voyager is that they always wanted a Nick Locarno type of character. They always wanted Robert Duncan McNeill in the role. And, honestly, that doesn't mean that they never considered casting someone older. We know that there were legal issues with having the Nick Locarno character, and that's why he's Tom Paris.

And, you know, it's like how they auditioned men for Janeway and women for Chakotay at one point. Like how DS9 auditioned white men for Sisko, you throw everything at the wall and see if it sticks. But I think the AU with an older Paris would have been interesting.

Anika: I'm fine with it as is. I like the ten-year age gap, personally, but I don't even mind -- I wouldn't mind the five-year if she's really thirty-five. Whatever, fine. Then we're closer to a five-year age gap. But I like the idea of her, like, meeting him when he was a kid and then forgetting that that happened.

Liz: Not giving him any thought, and then meeting him as an adult and going, oh.

Anika: "Whoa."

Liz: Yeah. That would have been really cool because it's a sort of borderline creepy storyline that we see a lot with men and younger women. And I don't remember ever seeing it with women and younger men. And I like an age gap, and I like a relationship where there -- there are problematic elements to be negotiated.

Anika: Yes, exactly. Oh, my favorite things.

Liz: But also I think Tom Paris in the pilot is a deeply terrible person, and I hate him.

Anika: Oh, yeah.

Liz: So many of my friends are watching Voyager for the first time and going, Wow, Tom Paris, he is the worst. And I'm like, Yeah, but wait a few seasons, he's going to be the suburban dad of everyone's, I don't want to say everyone's dreams, but he's going to be peak suburban nice dad. And it'll be great.

Anika: You said that Robbie says that he blamed himself for being skeezy -- see, I give Robbie all the credit for him not being skeezy. I'm on the other side, where I really feel like they tried, they tried to make Tom Paris that guy, the guy that I don't ever like and never want in my Star Trek, and they keep trying to put him in Star Trek. Like, every series has that guy. And it was Tom Paris.

And he was just not capable of playing it. He put so much warmth into these horrible lines and situations that you couldn't -- you couldn't read it that way. And so there was, like, oh, there's something deeper here, he's not just hitting on people, he's lonely. He's not just, like, he's not getting, you know, doing -- he's not trying to hit on the captain in her pool [game] or whatever, he's actually trying to make a friend. He's telling her that she matters to him because she's giving him these second chances.

I read all of my Janeway/Paris stuff into these early seasons where he has horrible storylines, because the actors aren't acting like he's a skeevy, horrible person.

Liz: No, and all of Tom's good qualities are -- or seem to be -- Robert Duncan McNeill's good qualities. You know, he's open, he's generous. He's kind of funny, kind of a dork, but self-aware about it, and very passionate about holding up the people that he loves. That seems to be Robert Duncan McNeill. And that is who Tom Paris becomes.

But I also think, like, what you were saying about how he's not flirting, he's trying to make friends, I also think that his background in terms of having neglectful and emotionally negligent parents, he needs people to like him. And if the only way he can do that is to make them attracted to him -- to build an attraction -- that's the strategy he'll use.

Anika: It's such a psychological thing that really happens, and again, often with women.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: I gotta say, this might be a good place to say, where Voyager does an incredible job of giving all of the men various feminine traits or, like, you know, stereotypically woman-centered things that happen--

Liz: Right, right, Chakotay is sensitive and domestic. And Tuvok defines himself to a large degree by his parenthood, and Neelix is the cook, and the Doctor is a caretaker, and Harry -- with Harry, I feel like a lot of it's bound up in anti-Asian racism, to be honest, and the emasculation of Asian men. But he is another very sensitive and gentle guy who doesn't really like -- he likes to be romanced, he doesn't like to be seduced.

Anika: It's great. And then, you know, the women -- we get B'Elanna in the engineering role. And she's also angry all the time.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: And Janeway is a scientist and in charge, you know, she's the authority.

Liz: And Seven -- Seven, when she's comes, in is sort of her own thing altogether. But she's the Spock. She's the Odo. She's the Data. And it's notable that the most classically feminine of the characters is Kes, and she's the one who is treated as a failure and discarded and in the fourth season.

Anika: Yeah. They don't know how to write for her, is what it comes down to

Liz: I think it's that thing where they don't know how to empathize with women who don't act in some way, like men. And this is all very binary and very steeped in stereotypes and generalization.

Anika: But it's very '90s.

Liz: It is so '90s.

Anika:

I can say, as a child of the '90s -- I can still call myself that -- that it's what we were grappling with. Like, the '80s were -- there was this whole power fantasy stuff, right? And then the '90s were, you know, grunge and riot grrrls. And so there's just -- this show, like, yeah, it's using all those stereotypes, and so that's why I'm calling them feminine traits. I don't think that cooking or being a good parent or having soft hair or being a musician is feminine in any way.

Liz: No, but we are dealing in stereotypes.

Anika: It's gender coding. That's what I'm talking about.

Liz: Relatedly, one of the reasons Janeway's character is considered 'inconsistent', and I'm using air quotes because I don't think that's actually -- I don't think she's the worst in terms of inconsistent writing and Star Trek captains. But -- (Archer) -- but part of the reason for that--

Anika: My trash boy.

Liz: --is that all the writers had a different feminine stereotype or archetype in mind when they were writing Janeway. Some people saw her as a schoolmarm and Jeri Taylor saw her as an earth mother for some godforsaken unknown reason. And it seems like no one was really able to go, "Hey, what if we get past the stereotypes and archetypes and just write her as a ... person?"

Anika: It's just bad. And it's true. There are definitely inconsistencies where she -- the one that I always point out is that she has this super faith thing where she literally has a scene where she explains the concept of faith and God to Harry Kim. And then, a season later, she has to go save Kes from whatever horrible thing is holding Kes hostage.

Liz: And suddenly she's a TV atheist.

Anika: Yeah. And it's like, what are you talking about? That is not Janeway. It's just wrong. You can't have it both ways. And so there are inconsistencies.

I think you're right, that it's a problem with different people having -- like, putting different ideas of who Janeway is onto her.

Liz: And certainly, Archer is at his worst when they try and force him into an equally narrow masculine box.

Anika: Yeah. Right.

Liz: So, the patriarchy. It hurts men too!

Anika: But I do think that, yeah, Janeway isn't alone in her inconsistencies. And I also think, of every Star Trek character, or every captain, she has the most reason to be inconsistent.

Liz: One hundred percent. Because she's the only one--

Anika: She shouldn't be--

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: She shouldn't be consistent when she's holding the entire, like, the idea of Starfleet and the Federation herself. She's gluing it together in a place that doesn't know what any of those words even mean.

Liz: And she can never get a break. Picard can take a holiday and go to Risa, and wear skimpy shorts, and have a fling, and have adventures. Janeway has to do all that in the context of her ship.

Anika: Right. And she's always captain. She never gets to not be captain, even if she's in the holodeck hanging out.

Liz: Yeah. Basically, Voyager is 2020, and Janeway is working from home.

Anika: So I cut her a little slack.

Liz: Hah, I cut her a lot of slack.

Anika: And I write into my own little headcanons that it is all of this psychological stuff that she's dealing with. Uou know, I say, Oh, well, she was depressed then, so she was making these choices. So.

Liz: Honestly, Janeway makes sense to me. There are inconsistencies, but she holds -- like, she feels consistent emotionally. And that's what's important.

Anika: Right.

Liz: Let's talk about Chakotay, who you've described here as the most stereotypical Native character ever.

Anika: It's just really sad.

Liz: I -- yeah.

Anika: Like it's sad on every level, because now, creating a Native character now, which they should definitely do, but putting that character into Star Trek, that character automatically is stuck with the Chakotay baggage. And that's just so upsetting. We're never going to get this clean, quote unquote, Native character, because of this mess that we got with Chakotay, where he -- like, it was already bad, the TNG episode isn't any better. That episode is really bad.

Liz: That's the episode "Journey's End", which sets up either Chakotay's home planet or one very much like it, colonized by Native Americans, because that is absolutely how Indigenous people work.

Anika: So bad. And then they get kicked out, kind of like in Picard, you know, Starfleet's like, "You gotta leave now, because the Cardassians own this place." And it's like, but they don't really? And no one really does?

So, right, it puts them on the wrong -- it's just all it's all bad. It's all bad. And it's all very much a white person writing what they think an Indigenous person is.

Liz: Right.

Anika: All it did the dream watching, and--

Liz: The vision quest...

Anika: --none of it is true. That's where I end the sentence, none of it is true to the idea of an Indigenous character. And it's just it never gets good in Voyager. I want to like Chakotay, and I have troubles.

Liz: To their credit, they hired a consultant. Unfortunately, the consultant was a white fraud, a Native faker, who was already notorious for being a fake, and Native American groups had been warning Hollywood for years that he was actually a white guy. So they start off on a bad foot.

They audition a lot of Native American actors and decide they're too, quote unquote, on the nose, meaning too Native American. So they cast Robert Beltran, who is a very talented Mexican American actor, who doesn't seem to have any Native heritage. I don't know how Indigenous identity in Mexico works, but to my knowledge, he doesn't really participate in Native culture, or anything like that. So, yeah, they just went for the nearest brown guy, basically.

Anika: And the thing is, if he was Mexican American, and not Native, that would be better,

Liz: Right, or just a Mexican American character who has some Native heritage that he is learning about, like, that is a really interesting story. But like, so much of it is dated even for 1996.

Anika: Right. That's right, exactly.

Liz: I remember as a kid cringing every time they use the word Indian, because even then I knew that the new and appropriate term was Native American. And just the whole "I hear in some tribes, if I save your life, you belong to me" -- that's a setup for a slash fic. It shouldn't be canonical.

Anika: Yeah, everything about poor Chakotay is poorly done. And the further we get from Voyager, like, the more time goes on, the -- [it gets] more blatantly bad. It really starts to stick out.

Liz: I understand what you're saying, that everything they do from now is tainted by what they did with Chakotay. But I really do think that new Trek, the Trek Renaissance, needs Indigenous representation.

Anika: They should definitely do it.

Liz: Yeah, like Discovery films in Toronto and there is no shortage of hugely talented Native Canadian -- I think it's Canadian Aboriginal? Of Indigenous Canadian actors. And and, obviously, Evan Evagora in Picard is half-Maori ... but he's playing a Romulan, so.

Anika: I'm not saying they shouldn't do it because of all this baggage. I just feel sorry for the actor.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: I feel badly for the person who has to deal with it.

Liz: Also because they're inevitably going to end up on panels with Robert Beltran, and honestly, he seems like a dick.

Anika: Everything I've seen of Robert Beltran has been very, like, dismissive, I guess, is the best way -- like, when people bring up to him that, you know, maybe it wasn't the best representation of an Indigenous population, he sort of gets defensive and doesn't listen.

Liz: Yeah.

So let's move on to the greatest character in all of Star Trek...

Anika: Tuvok?!

Liz: Tuvok! Yes.

Anika: I have a Tuvok standee in my house now. I love it. It's just -- Tuvok is amazing. Best Vulcan by far.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: His relationship with Janeway is so precious to me. I just love everything about it. I love how warm it is right off from the beginning. I love that he is just as -- he does crazy stuff for Janeway, the way that Kirk does crazy stuff for Spock. It's that same level of "that's insane," and I love that. I love that they have that relationship. And I'm forever sad that they are the least represented in fan fiction. Like, even, like, platonic. I'm not saying -- I do, I would ship them. But...

Liz: But we don't even have fic about them having adventures.

Anika: Right? There's just -- I mean, Tuvok, yes, best character in Trek. Chemistry with everyone is highly -- [but] he's the least represented in Voyager. It's very upsetting to me because it cannot not be racism. There's just -- I don't have another explanation for why Tuvok is so ignored.

Liz: I have a theory, but I think the primary reason is indeed racism. But I also think it's that Tuvok enters the series as a man who already knows who he is, and his regrets are mainly behind him, and he doesn't really change much over the course of the series, save that he unbends to an extent to reveal his affection more than he did at the start. But, on the whole, he's not the most dynamic character.

And I love that about him! I love his stability, I love the respect that he has for everyone, even Neelix, who often doesn't deserve it. And I think he is a character who is almost the heart and soul of the show in a way that's easily overlooked because he is entertaining and fun to watch with every single other regular character.

When I put it like that, the only reason he is overlooked -- aside from -- like, I really do think a lot of it comes down to racism

Anika: Yeah, he absolutely is stable. And he absolutely does -- he's a supporting character in every way? He supports, but it's sort of like, so shouldn't he be supporting people? Can't we still write fic about that? I don't understand.

Liz: Now I'm thinking that if he was a white guy, he would probably be the male bicycle of the cast. Like I realized the entire cast minus Neelix is basically the bicycle, but now I'm side-eyeing fandom extra hard.

Anika: I just love Tuvok so much. And I have written Tuvok, but I've definitely written for January and Paris. So I'm also part of the problem, I guess.

Liz: I will confess that I completely overlooked him until my current rewatch, so I am not excusing myself from anything here.

Anika: I try to give him, you know, his due, at least in my ensemble fic. I don't actually write much Voyager fic right now.

Liz: No, no. I haven't for years

Anika: And also T'Pel, too, I'm, like, on a mission to give T'Pel literally any characterization whatsoever.

Liz: Someone somewhere out there is going to write me a Janeway/Tuvok/T'Pel fic, and I'm going to be very grateful.

Anika: Nice.

Liz: We're almost at an hour. Let's talk about Harry Kim. Every time I watch "Caretaker", I'm blown away by how beautiful Garrett Wang is, and the floppiness of his perfect '90s non-threatening boy hair. It's magnificent.

Anika: That's absolutely true. One of my photo caps, he just has amazing hair. One shot, you know, my, like, tagline for Janeway is that her hair is fabulous. And I was like, Oh, HIS hair is fabulous, and I compared it to Poe Dameron.

Liz: Oh, no, you're not wrong. I said something in my "Q and the Gray" post about how the only redeeming feature of that episode was Harry's floppy hair. And then I mentioned that when I linked to it on Twitter, and Garrett Wang replied, and I -- I cannot be acknowledged by the actors in that way. Like, I want to objectify you, you don't get to respond. This is a one-way relationship.

Anika: Poor Harry Kim. Harry Kim is another one who is routinely overlooked by fandom. But unlike with Tuvok, there are like the rabid Harry Kim fans who will come to his defense and do write him, usually with Tom, but--

Liz: I understand that there is a thriving, powerful of Tom/Harry shippers, and I don't ship it, but I fully respect them.

Anika: And so he has his own little corner, I guess, of the fandom. But it is still true that, in wider fandom, if you're gonna ask non-Voyager fans -- but Trek fans -- they'll point out Harry Kim as a waste of space, that he has no characterization whatsoever--

Liz: Lies!

Anika: --that, literally all they know about him is that he was never promoted during the series. And it's just, it's gross.

Liz: Which is, again, racism.

Anika: Which is just really bad.

Liz: Because Rick Berman did not like Garret Wang.

Anika: Exactly. What I do when I'm watching Voyager, and I really saw it -- like, Voyager actually does a good job -- you know how we were always complaining about making the bridge crew annoyingly prominent in Discovery? Voyager does a really good job with their giant ensemble. And to be fair, they're all like actual regulars.

Liz: They are, which I do think was a mistake.

Anika: They're supposed to be prominent, but little things. Like there's this great part where we learn that Harry wears a mask to sleep, and why. And, of course, he has his clarinet and his love of music, that he, saved up replicator rations to make a clarinet because he left his actual one at home.

And he has his fiancee, and when he is in that little bubble reality where he's back on Earth, and he has like a favorite coffee place, and he has a favorite coffee order. And it's like, those are the details that I want. You know, they're like throwaway -- not important to the plot. They just tell you who Harry is.

Liz: And what he values.

Anika: And he's a really sweet guy that cares about community, and knows people's names, and pays attention to little things. I don't understand the criticism that Harry Kim doesn't have character, because he has so much character.

Liz: What I don't get is this idea that Harry Kim is bad with women. He is wildly successful with women. He just finds it uncomfortable when women come at him aggressively. Like--

Anika: Yeah!

Liz: --that's it. And I think, again, this memetic idea that Harry is bad with women is racist, because it comes up in the script, and people accept it as reality, but it's not remotely true.

Anika: It's not true. And it's weird. He has plenty of little one-off relationships.

Liz: Right!

Anika: It's strange. It's strange. And also this idea that he's not promoted. That's not on Harry.

Liz: No. That is, in universe, on Janeway and, in reality, on Rick Berman

Anika: Right.

Liz: And why are we passing up an opportunity to criticize Rick Berman? We love that shit!

Anika: Let's always criticize Rick. Definitely everything wrong is Rick Berman. And, you know, all of them. Brannon Braga and Jeri Taylor aren't -- they're better than Rick Berman, but they aren't great.

Liz: No, no, I'm very fond of Braga because I share his tastes for weird science fictional time travel stuff. Buuuuuut...

Anika: There's stuff. There are things that are questionable. And obviously Rick Berman is a trash person and not the way that Jonathan Archer is.

Liz: No, he is a trash person in the low level #MeToo way.

Anika: Right. But back to Harry.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: Harry had a fiancee, so I don't exactly understand how he's bad with women. And in the new Janeway autobiography, he gets back with her.

Liz: Oh, nice!

Anika: I was like, Oh, that's actually -- like, I always sort of I make fun of [Libby] almost as much as I make fun of Mark, but that's really not fair to Libby, because she--

Liz: She has a personality.

Anika: In the one episode we get with her -- yeah, she has a personality, they actually have a really sweet relationship that I'm sort of, like, I can cheerlead that, you know? And since I don't like any of his canon relationships in the show, it's like, sure, he gets back together with Libby. They have a happy life, that's great.

Liz: Yeah, I love that for him.

Anika: I'd also -- while we're because we're allegedly talking about "Caretaker"--

Liz: Oh, yeah.

Anika: The pet names, the way that B'Elanna and Harry call each other Starfleet and Marquis, every once in a while it comes back up, and every time I'm happy, and I love their relationship the way that it -- like, it's not actually in the show. But their relationship that is seen in those tiny moments where they call each other by these pet names, and they support each other and, like, share, Tom is really great.

I just wish that they had built on the potential of those characters and that relationship, and that we got more of that friendship.

Liz: And it really feels like they were setting the groundwork for a canonical romance. And I have to believe that the only reason they didn't go through with that was, again, racism.

Anika: Yeah. Racism.

Liz: Because it had faded well into the background before they worked out that Roxann Dawson had amazing chemistry with Robert Duncan McNeill. And I like Tom and B'Elanna, but I also would have liked Harry and B'Elanna.

I just think at some point early on, they decided, "Actually this Asian kid, we're not going to do anything to support him or uphold him."

And, you know, allegedly he was the one -- almost the one who was fired at the end of season three, and then Garrett Wang made it onto the People's most beautiful 50 Most Beautiful People of the Year list, and they ditched Jennifer Lien instead.

Wang has said that that's not entirely accurate, and I think I'll have to dip back into Delta Fliers when he discusses that, because certainly Jennifer Lien seems to have had problems even then.

Anika: Yes.

Liz: And I hate that her career came to an end because I wonder if she would have been in a better position now than if she had -- if it had not [been her that was let go]. For those who don't follow Voyager actors in the news, Lien has not acted for a long time, and I think is living in Texas, and has racked up a bunch of criminal charges. And basically -- "don't do meth" is the moral of the story.

Anika: Her story reminds me a lot of Grace Lee Whitney's.

Liz: Yeah. And you know, Whitney really struggled with addiction for a very long time, and got through it and her career revived, and she wound up having a successful and happy life. So I hope that comes true for Lien as well. Is this a good segue to talk about Kes?

Anika: Yes. I love Kes, and they from the beginning did not know how to write her. They did not know what they were going to do with her. I hate her introduction. I love Kes as, like, the girl who's climbing up the rabbit hole.

Liz: The fairy princess going on adventures.

Anika: But I hate the fact that we meet her as battered and bruised, and a prisoner, and being saved by Neelix, who's lying to our heroes in order to do it. Everything is bad about that. That's not just -- that's just not good.

Liz: I think even if Janeway had been the one to save her, it would have been better.

Anika: Yes.

Liz: But yeah, I think the whole Neelix/Kes relationship was--

Anika: Oof!

Liz: --poorly conceived. Yur note here is that Kes is an abuse victim and also a literal child. And to be honest, I never have any problem accepting the Ocampa for fully grown adults at the age of one, and they are sexually mature and emotionally mature -- or as emotionally mature as an adult twenty-year-old can be, and there's nothing skeevy happening here. But nevertheless, the gap in age between Ethan Phillips and Jennifer Lien is so great?

Anika: Right.

Liz: I think if they had cast someone younger as Neelix, it might have worked, but it was so far from being a relationship between equals.

Anika: The issue with the actors' ages is, because they're both playing aliens, and they're both playing aliens that are new, even -- like, they're not even Vulcans or whatever, that we're aware of, we don't know how how old either -- like, I guess we know that Ocampa live to be seven-years-old. But until she comes back in "Fury", I was always sort of like, What's seven? You know, we made up time, seven in the Delta Quadrant could be eighty, we don't know. You know, it's another thing that you shouldn't think too much about in science fiction.

And then, Neelix. The thing is that even if he is a young -- what is he? Talaxian? Even if he is a young Talaxian, he has a ship, he has a job. He was in the military for a while, and left.

Liz: I was gonna say, his history in the military makes me think he's considerably older than, say, thirty?

Anika: Yeah. He's lived too much to have this. And she literally lived her two years underground, being one of the Caretaker's ants in his ant farm. [Note from Liz: we regret to report that Kes is, in fact, one year old in "Caretaker". She turns two in "Twisted" and WHY DO I KNOW THIS WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP?] She has no experience whatsoever. So putting those two together is the -- it's just not balanced in any way.

Liz: No. And I, as much as I love an age gap, there are certain conditions that have to be in place for me to be on board. One is that, in experience, or intelligence, they have to be equals. And two, the story has to acknowledge the unevenness and the consequences of that. And Voyager tried really, really hard not to.

Anika: Right.

Liz: It felt dishonest in a way. And then there was the whole Neelix jealousy subplot that came along a season or so later. It really served both characters poorly. I like Neelix? But I like him best after Kes breaks up with him in season three.

Anika: I like him best, really, after Kes is gone. Unfortunately,

Liz: No, no, that makes sense. I think sometimes a relationship holds a character back, even the memory of it. And it's easier to overlook the skeeviness of the Neelix/Kes relationship once Kes is gone.

Anika: And the issue is that Neelix's other closest relationship is with Tuvok, who is another person who -- like, Tuvok is Mr. Boundaries, and Neelix doesn't know what a boundary is.

Liz: Yeah. That's my other beef.

Anika: So my -- like, I get why they put those two characters together, and why they built up that relationship. But when you look at the way that Neelix treats Kes, and the way that Neelix treats Tom, and the way that Neelix treats Tuvok together, it doesn't make Neelix look good.

Liz: No, no, you kind of have to take him -- you really have to compartmentalize him.

And it's a shame, because I love Kes, and I really identified with her when I was a teenage girl. Obviously I identified with Janeway, and weirdly, I sort of overlooked B'Elanna because she was so angry, and I was very much in denial about being an angry teenage girl. But I love her now, obviously.

But one of the reasons that they thought Kes was unappealing was that she was too much aimed at the teenage girl demographic. And in the costume book, they describe her as dressing like a teenage girl. And I'm like, you keep saying that like it's a bad thing!

Anika: Hollywood -- society as a whole -- really looks down on teenage girls.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And, you know, a politician says something that you don't like, and they say, "Oh, just like a teenage girl." And it's like, what? What are you talking about? So yeah, it's just bad.

Liz: I'm just saying, you know, who were the first to be into the Beatles? Teenage girls.

Anika: Well, teenage girls are great, and we should always support them. I have that -- that's one of my, like, reusable hashtags, #SupportTeenGrls, because it's just, it's just silly. It's silly not to.

Liz: I think that Kes could easily have coexisted with Seven. Like, I think it would have been really fascinating.

Anika: Yeah! You've said this before, that they should -- like, they should have had, like, five regulars and a bunch of supporting characters. And that's true.

Liz: If they had gotten to season four and dropped, say, Kes and Harry down to recurring, so there's not the pressure to have them in every episode and not the pressure to give them stories--

Anika: And Neelix! Why are we keeping Neelix?

Liz: Oh yeah, no, Neelix has to go.

Anika: Just saying. But for some reason, they were really against all of, like, that.

Liz: Ironically for a science fiction show, I think Star Trek in the '90s was really afraid to change.

Anika: Yeah, it's because, you know what happened with Terry Farrell, where she was like, "Look, I don't want to be a regular. I still want to play this character. I just don't want to be a regular," and they were like, "No." And--

Liz: You say "they", but--

Anika: --they wrote her out and brought in someone else. Yeah.

Liz: It's Rick Berman.

Anika: We all know who.

Liz: This is a great episode for criticizing Berman. I love it.

Anika: Itwould have made so much more sense to spread the love. But ... I don't know, they wrote B'Elanna really well, so I gotta give them that. B'Elanna is my -- you know, B'Elanna and Seven -- but Seven is, like, on a whole other level. B'Elanna is--

Liz: Seven is extraordinary. B'Elanna is also--

Anika: --an incredibly well-written character over seven seasons. She goes on a journey. And they check back in with her at the same time, you know, every season. And it's really clever, and it's really well done.

I don't know how they did so well with B'Elanna when they did so poorly with others. But they did. And maybe -- I said that she's angry all the time, and that's a, quote unquote, masculine trait. And so maybe it just was easier to do -- like it was easier for the writers to write that. But you said that you didn't initially identify with B'Elanna.

Liz: No.

Anika: I want to repeat something I said on a panel some years ago now, where I said, B'Elanna is my Spock.

Liz: I remember you've talked about that before, and I think it's a really great point. And I think having a character who is as angry as her, and as conflicted about her identity, and whose story carries over seven seasons -- and it never really comes to an easy resolution. She goes forward, she goes backwards. She has good days, she has bad days. I think it's an absolute masterclass in writing a key supporting character over time.

Anika: That she is consistent in her inconsistency, that all of the inconsistencies that come up in B'Elanna 's story are there -- are pointed out, are part of the plot, are, like, "We're gonna deal with this now."

And she's consistently going back and forth in different ways, and she never gets over her -- like, she never fully gets over her identity issues. She's dealing with, an anxiety issue pretty much throughout the entire -- even in the seventh season, she's still dealing with that anxiety.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: And that's true to life. And so it's just really well done. I think that if they had paid more attention to her, they would have screwed her up.

Liz: That's exactly what I was going to say.

Anika: It's exactly the right amount of attention.

Liz: I feel like B'Elanna's story succeeds because she's a supporting character, and she's not the focus of attention the way Janeway and Seven are. And therefore, there's not the pressure riding on her, and not the level of attention, and they can just go through and quietly tell a good story, you know, the way they did with Worf in TNG. Worf's story back then was very -- pre-Deep Space Nine -- was very consistent and very well-told. I mean, you need to have tolerance for Klingon shit, but I'm a bit fond of Klingon bullshit.

So -- so we have not discussed the Doctor.

Anika: Oh, the Doctor. Well, he is barely a person in this first episode.

Liz: He's just Cranky Siri.

Anika: He's literally the program. He doesn't do anything new. He grows -- that's a character tha goes on quite the journey over Voyager, you know, it's kind of required of that character to grow in many ways.

Liz: But what's interesting is that he wasn't planned to be a funny character, and that was something that Robert Picardo brought to the role. And it almost leads to him taking over the series. Like, I find the Doctor very wearisome. And this argument that Seven of Nine takes over, when the Doctor is there every second episode. Seriously?

Anika: Yeah, Seven takes over in a way that, like, Tuvok, Chakotay -- B'Elanna's pretty -- like, B'Elanna's always second tier, that's where she exists. So she doesn't change. Tom arguably -- but Tom still gets to do all his Tom stuff.

But Harry, Chakotay and Tuvok, definitely, are sort of put in the shadows by Seven. You're absolutely correct, the Doctor has just as much character stuff. But he's been there all along, I guess. Like, you don't see it as a change, because what happens is his story doesn't go back the way that Tuvok's and Chakotay's -- he's not put in that box.

Liz: I think it frustrates me with the Doctor, whereas it doesn't with Seven, because I feel like, with Seven, they were doing something genuinely revolutionary in terms of the character and the way her story was written. And it obviously built on a lot of great writing from other science fiction series.

But Seven was new, and the Doctor is just, you know, mash up Data with McCoy and you've got the holographic doctor.

Anika: I am interested that you said that he wasn't meant to be funny, because I can't actually imagine him as not funny.

Liz: No, I know!

Anika: Like, what even would that be? That would literally be like, you know, Siri talking to me. That's not interesting.

Liz: I get the impression that he was basically conceived as Medical Siri. And I guess because it was the '90s and we didn't have Siri, then no one realized how boring that concept would be. And I think the idea always was that he would grow -- go on this journey of personhood, but it's Robert Picardo, who made it a journey of comedy personhood.

Anika: I like it. I like that. I can't imagine it another way.

I don't love the Doctor, I think I agree with you that it's just sort of tired. It's like, we did Odo, we did Data, we did Spock. And Seven brings something different to those same tropes, whereas the Doctor doesn't, really.

The Doctor is basically Data again, not the same personality, but it's sort of the same idea. He's also put on trial to prove that he exists, and he's also used in poor ways. I like the Doctor-centric episodes that aren't about his identity, but are more about how his identity fits into his community.

Liz: Yes, no, that makes sense. And, yeah, I don't dislike the Doctor. I just get tired of him by the end of season seven.

Anika: I mean, I think that's fair. I think that he also has a harsh personality.

Liz: Yeah, a little goes a long way. And honestly, I don't think he's a very good doctor. So ... he's not ... yeah.

Anika: I wouldn't want Siri to be my doctor either.

Liz: No, and we know that he was programmed by one of the biggest creeps in Starfleet.

Anika: Yes!

Liz: And I'm not even talking about Reginald Barclay!

Anika: Well, yeah, it's kind of amazing that he is a nice person at all, really, when you think about it?

Liz: Sheer luck, and also the influence of Kes.

Anika: Yeah, I was gonna say, it's the people. And that's why those are the more interesting episodes. Because someone building an identity is not as interesting as someone becoming more of themselves because of the interactions that they're having.

Liz: Right, yes.

So your note here is, "Janeway's choice. If this were a Cardassian ship, we'd be home now. If this were a Klingon ship, we'd be home now. If this were a Vulcan ship, we'd be home now. Why are humans?"

Anika: I'm just saying.

Liz: Which brings me to my thought, like, we don't see Seska in this episode, but I have to think that the whole Caretaker shenanigans -- it's just a very bad day for her. She's thrown to the other side of the galaxy, she's abducted, she's put through tests.

Then it turns out that Tuvok was a spy, and she didn't even notice, and that it has to be embarrassing, even though he didn't notice her, so at least they're even.

And then this Starfleet captain goes and traps them on the other side of the galaxy, and she has to wear a Starfleet uniform, and she's going to be on this ship for seventy years pretending to be a Bajoran?

Anika: Seska's worst day ever.

Liz: Uh, yeah, basically.

Anika: But, yeah, so obviously I was quoting Seska in the "If this were a Cardassian ship, we'd be home now." One of the best lines, best episodes? Yes. But, one hundred percent, Klingons and Vulcans would also not have done this. And probably Andorians. It's pretty much very human to do this.

Liz: It is. And I think it reflects the way that we have a strong sense of justice and decency and also a dash of paternalism.

Anika: I guess it's also a super American choice?

Liz: That brings me to my note here, "the Social Security controversy", because this episode ends with Janeway telling the Caretaker that, you know, children have to grow up and the Ocampa have to learn to stand on their own feet.

And a lot of -- this aired around the time that Bill Clinton was tipping a lot of people off Social Security, and a lot of left-wing and liberal viewers interpreted this episode as having a subtext -- basically an anti-Social Security subtext.

And it's interesting, because all through the series, Voyager does sort of have this odd, low-key reactionary tendency. You know, refugees are a bit scary. These former slaves are scary, and not white, and all of that stuff. And it's really built into the pilot.

Anika: Yeah, it's definitely there. And, you know, Voyager is my Trek, I guess, as you say.

Liz: And that's how we can criticize it.

Anika: And that's how we can criticize it, right. And I am very critical all the time.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Of many of the things both within the storylines, and things that happened behind the scenes and outside of -- and like, why things happened the way they did, and the storylines and stuff like that, all of that.

I can't watch an episode without thinking about the different things, and the way that I saw it when, again, I was a very young adult (in terms of science, not an adult at all) and yet, being asked to make decisions that they kept saying would affect my whole life. "Where do you want to go to college? What do you want to major in? What are you going to do with your life?" You know, and it's like, I don't know.

Liz: "I'm a kid, man."

Anika: And Voyager was my show at that time. And I was also -- like, I've mentioned before, on various places, I went through a -- I was -- I had a mental breakdown during Voyager. As Voyager ended, within six months after Voyager ended, I was hospitalised. So it I think it was even -- because -- if it ended in May that -- yeah, it was like, less than.

So it's just really -- I was becoming a person when Voyager happened, and on the backside of it, on the other end, when it was over. And I literally named myself after Seven of Nine. So when I say that Voyager shaped my personhood, I mean, it literally. Watching this show, at that time of my life, it shaped how I think, and how I feel, and how I see. And that's why I can look back on it without my rose colored glasses, and say, Whoo, that's really rough.

And I'm on Tuvok's side, whenTuvok was like, "This is not our job. We are, we are -- like, that guy was overinvested in this nonsense, and you're just -- you're just continuing that, and you have even less reason to be doing this."

That's why I love Seska so much. That's why I'm always talking about Seska, because Seska's the one who's pointing at it and saying, "This is -- like, letting the Kazon do whatever they want is a wrong decision. But what you're doing is also a wrong decision." And--

Liz: I don't think Janeway is necessarily wrong. I think the Kazon would have probably wiped out the Ocampa if they were left to their own devices. I think, if you can prevent a genocide, then you should do so.

Anika: Everything I know about the Kazon ... I don't think that they could--

Liz: You don't think they're capable?

Anika: 'Cos there were two ships.

Liz: Yeah, that's true.

Anika: Like how would -- I don't see people who have to steal water being able to take out the Ocampa.

Like, the Ocampa not being able to defend themselves is a problem, that is true, the Ocampa not being able to leave their planet. But I guess my point is that the Caretaker is the one who put them in that position.

Liz: Right.

Anika: And Janeway still, like -- yeah, they blow up the array and the two Kazon ships, but then they still leave. Like, the Ocampa are still hanging out on their planet, right?

Liz: And they don't even know about the danger. They don't even know that the Caretaker is dying.

Anika: So I don't see how Voyager taking care of this one threat, and then bouncing, is actually better for the Ocampa.

Liz: It's so typical of '90s Trek.

Anika: I guess there's no right choice here is the real -- the real answer is, there's no good choice, and so I'm fine with Janeway's choice. I just think--

Liz: As opposed to killing Tuvix, which is the only right choice.

Anika: I'm just saying that the idea -- like, Janeway's saviorhood is super -- you can tell that her dad was an admiral, you can tell that she lives and breathes Starfleet. And that's interesting, and that's good, and that makes her a great character. I just am that person who says, also Starfleet can be bad sometimes.

Liz: Yes. And also, I think that if this had been a Next Generation episode, there would have been a meeting about it where everyone argues the rights and wrongs of destroying the array and incorporating the Maquis into the crew. But because they're so set on establishing Janeway as a, quote unquote, strong female character, there was no room for that consultation. She needed to make that decision or else they thought it might be sexist, I guess?

Anika: I guess? She just comes off as like --

Liz: High handed.

Anika: Yeah. It's just, literally Tuvok is like, "Hey, maybe let's not do that." And she's like, "No, I'm gonna do that." And then--

Liz: I'm sorry. When Tuvok speaks, you should listen.

Anika: Right?

I mean, the truth is, in more than one episode, Tuvok, like -- in the teaser, Tuvok will say something, and then it'll turn out to be correct. And the entire episode would not have happened if we just listened to Tuvok.

Liz: See, this is why Tuvok needs to join the cast of Star Trek: Picard. Like, maybe their episodes would be shorter, but they will have a much easier time getting things done.

Anika: They also need an adult.

Liz: And obviously Picard is not -- you know, he's the cool granddad.

Anika: But yeah, so I just think it's very human. It's very American. It's very, it's very '90s, as you say. Absolutely. Like that is -- and it's interesting to look at it from our lens of now, to look back and think about how the entire series is based on this one decision.

Liz: Yeah. I don't think I know enough to really say this with any intelligence, but I'm not going to let that stop me! It sort of highlights the difference between liberalism and leftism? And I think Voyager thinks it's very liberal, and is actually very centrist.

Anika: Right, which is what liberalism is.

Liz: And that is so 1990s. This is Clinton-era Star Trek.

Anika: Very much so.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Well, that was fun!

Liz: We have talked about "Caretaker" for about as long as "Caretaker" runs. I'm so proud of us!

Anika: Whoops! Um, before we wrap up, I have one thing I wanted to say.

Liz: Yes?

Anika: This aired in 1995.

Liz: Oh, shit!

Anika: So it's actually the 26th anniversary.

Liz: Oh, that's so interesting!

Anika: But since 2020 was--

Liz: 2020?

Anika: --you know, let's just skip over that, we can call it the 25th.

Liz: 25th with an asterisk. Yeah, that makes sense, because I was born in '82. So I was thirteen in the summer of '95. Cool. Okay. I'm really glad that we got this sorted out.

Anika: I was like, okay, when did I graduate? I was trying to figure out exactly how old I was. And so yeah, so I looked up the air date and, yeah.

Liz: My very first memory of being aware of Voyager was a column about Genevieve Bujold quitting the role. And I had a scrapbook where I cut out and saved any Star Trek related articles that happened to cross my path. I saved this article because it was basically, overworked, underpaid journalist thinks that being a starship captain sounds much easier and doesn't know what Bujold was complaining about.

What I took from that column at age about twelve is, Ooooh, another Star Trek, and this one has a lady captain! I don't know if I can ship a lady captain because any of the crew will be subordinate to her in rank. Oh, well, I'll watch it anyway, and I'll probably like it. Anyway, when's seaQuest on?

And look where we are now.

Anika: That's so funny.

Liz: I think I was a weirdly sexist little kid, actually.

Anyway, thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.tumblr.com, including links to our social media and credits for our theme music.

You can also follow us on Twitter at @antimatterpod, and on Facebook, and every single episode I say I'm going to be better about sharing episodes on Facebook at every single support night I forget.

If you leave a review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you consume your podcasts, the more reviews the easier it is for new listeners to find us.

And join us in two weeks, when we will be discussing the classic TOS episode "City on the Edge of Forever".

[dfroza]

Today’s reading in the ancient book of Proverbs and Psalms

for monday, August 24 of 2020 with Proverbs 24 and Psalm 24 accompanied by Psalm 66 for the 66th day of Summer and Psalm 87 for day 237 of the year

and 66 is the number of books contained in the consummate Old and New Testaments of the Bible that were written under inspiration of the Spirit to be stitched Together over time

[Psalm 24]

A song of David.

The earth and all that’s upon it belong to the Eternal.

The world is His, with every living creature on it.

With seas as foundations and rivers as boundaries,

He shaped the continents, fashioned the earth.

Who can possibly ascend the mountain of the Eternal?

Who can stand before Him in sacred spaces?

Only those whose hands have been washed and hearts made pure,

men and women who are not given to lies or deception.

The Eternal will stand close to them with blessing and mercy at hand,

and the God who redeems will right what has been wrong.

These are the people who chase after Him;

[like Jacob, they look for the face of God].

[pause]

City gates—open wide!

Ancient doors—stand back!

For the glorious King shall soon pass your way.

Who is the glorious King?

The Eternal who is powerful

and mightily equipped for battle.

City gates—open wide!

Ancient doors—stand back!

For the glorious King shall soon pass your way.

Who is the glorious King?

The Eternal, Commander of heaven’s army,

He is the glorious King.

[pause]

The Book of Psalms, Poem 24 (The Voice)

[Proverbs 24]

Don’t envy the wealth of the wicked or crave their company.

For they’re obsessed with causing trouble

and their conversations are corrupt.

Wise people are builders—

they build families, businesses, communities.

And through intelligence and insight

their enterprises are established and endure.

Because of their skilled leadership

the hearts of people are filled with the treasures of wisdom

and the pleasures of spiritual wealth.

Wisdom can make anyone into a mighty warrior,

and revelation-knowledge increases strength.

Wise strategy is necessary to wage war,

and with many astute advisers

you’ll see the path to victory more clearly.

Wisdom is a treasure too lofty for a quarreling fool—

he’ll have nothing to say when leaders gather together.

There is one who makes plans to do evil—

Master Schemer is his name.

If you plan to do evil, it’s as wrong as doing it.

And everyone detests a troublemaker.

If you faint when under pressure,

you have need of courage.

Go and rescue the perishing! Be their savior!

Why would you stand back and watch them stagger to their death?

And why would you say, “But it’s none of my business”?

The one who knows you completely and judges your every motive

is also the keeper of souls��and not just yours!

He sees through your excuses and holds you responsible

for failing to help those whose lives are threatened.

Revelation-knowledge is a delicacy,

sweet like flowing honey that melts in your mouth.

Eat as much of it as you can, my friend!

For then you will perceive what is true wisdom,

your future will be bright,

and this hope living within will never disappoint you.

Listen up, you wicked, irreverent ones—

don’t harass the lovers of God

and don’t invade their resting place.

For the lovers of God may suffer adversity

and stumble seven times,

but they will continue to rise over and over again.

But the unrighteous are brought down by just one calamity

and will never be able to rise again.

Never gloat when your enemy meets disaster

and don’t be quick to rejoice if he falls.

For the Lord, who sees your heart,

will be displeased with you and will pity your foe.

Don’t be angrily offended over evildoers or be agitated by them.

For the wicked have no life and no future—

their light of life will die out.

My child, stand in awe of the Lord Jehovah!

Give counsel to others,

but don’t mingle with those who are rebellious.

For sudden destruction will fall upon them

and their lives will be ruined in a moment.

And who knows what retribution they will face!

[Revelation from the Wise]

Those enlightened with wisdom have spoken these proverbs:

Judgment must be impartial,

for it is always wrong to be swayed by a person’s status.

If you say to the guilty, “You are innocent,”

the nation will curse you and the people will revile you.

But when you convict the guilty,

the people will thank you and reward you with favor.

Speaking honestly is a sign of true friendship.

Go ahead, build your career and give yourself to your work.

But if you put me first, you’ll see your family built up!

Why would you be a false accuser and slander with your words?

Don’t ever spitefully say, “I’ll get even with him!

I’ll do to him what he did to me!”

One day I passed by the field of a lazy man

and I noticed the vineyards of a slacker.

I observed nothing but thorns, weeds, and broken-down walls.

So I considered their lack of wisdom,

and I pondered the lessons I could learn from this:

Professional work habits prevent poverty from becoming

your permanent business partner. And:

If you put off until tomorrow the work you could do today,

tomorrow never seems to come.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 24 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 66]

Thank You, Lord

For the Pure and Shining One

A song of awakening

Everyone everywhere, lift up your joyful shout to God!

Sing your songs tuned to his glory!

Tell the world how wonderful he is.

For he’s the awe-inspiring God, great and glorious in power!

We’ve never seen anything like him!

Mighty in miracles, you cause your enemies to tremble.

No wonder they all surrender and bow before you!

All the earth will bow down to worship;

all the earth will sing your glories forever!

Pause in his presence

Everyone will say, “Come and see the incredible things God has done;

it will take your breath away!

He multiplies miracles for his people!”

He made a highway going right through the Red Sea

as the Hebrews passed through on dry ground,

exploding with joyous excitement over the miracles of God.

In his great and mighty power he rules forever,

watching over every movement of every nation.

So beware, rebel lands; he knows how to humble you!

Pause in his presence

Praise God, all you peoples.

Praise him everywhere and let everyone know you love him!

There’s no doubt about it; God holds our lives safely in his hands.

He’s the one who keeps us faithfully following him.

O Lord, we have passed through your fire;

like precious metal made pure,

you’ve proved us, perfected us, and made us holy.

You’ve captured us, ensnared us in your net.

Then, like prisoners, you placed chains around our necks.

You’ve allowed our enemies to prevail against us.

We’ve passed through fire and flood,

yet in the end you always bring us out better than we were before,

saturated with your goodness.

I come before your presence with my sacrifice.

I’ll give you all that I’ve promised, everything I have.

When I was overcome in my anguish,

I promised to give you my sacrifice.

Here it is! All that I said I would offer you is yours.

The best I have to bring, I’ll throw it all into the fire

as the fragrance of my sacrifice ascends unto you.

Pause in his presence

All you lovers of God who want to please him,

come and listen, and I’ll tell you what he did for me.

I cried aloud to him with all my heart and he answered me!

Now my mouth overflows with the highest praise.

Yet if I had closed my eyes to my sin,

the Lord God would have closed his ears to my prayer.

But praises rise to God,

for he paid attention to my prayer and answered my cry to him!

I will forever praise this God who didn’t close his heart when I prayed

and never said no when I asked him for help.

He never once refused to show me his tender love.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 66 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 87]

A Korah Psalm

He founded Zion on the Holy Mountain—

and oh, how God loves his home!

Loves it far better than all

the homes of Jacob put together!

God’s hometown—oh!

everyone there is talking about you!

I name them off, those among whom I’m famous:

Egypt and Babylon,

also Philistia,

even Tyre, along with Cush.

Word’s getting around; they point them out:

“This one was born again here!”

The word’s getting out on Zion:

“Men and women, right and left,

get born again in her!”

God registers their names in his book:

“This one, this one, and this one—

born again, right here.”

Singers and dancers give credit to Zion:

“All my springs are in you!”

The Book of Psalms, Poem 87 (The Message)

[urbanpoliticsus-blog]

January 17th 2017 Prompt A how has our conception of the city changed throughout history

🌇My how times have changed from the first cities in Mesopotamia circa 4000 BCE, to our bustling cities and quiet suburbs of today. Have you ever stopped to wonder how we got here? How our conceptions of what a city is has changed? Well, when the first cities were built they were completely enclosed by a wall. All activities took place within the wall. For example the city of Babylon. Inside the wall there were rivers for travel and water usage, markets, streets, temples, and palaces. Around 5th century BCE things began to change. Starting with the great city of Athens. The Greek polis stressed public life over private life thus there was no wall was built, kind of like the city’s of today. Even though no wall was built the city was separated into two parts the high city and the low city. On the high city was the Parthenon with other temples and structures. The people though typically went to the low city because of it shopping markets, dispute settlements, and large open-air theaters. 🏔🏟 In France around 500 BC the Celtic people built a wall around their city until it was invaded and conquered by the Gaul in 100 BC. Now stands the city of Carcassonne. 🏰Inside the thick wall lived the people but outside the wall were the city’s farmlands they were close by the city but not inside as it was in other city’s before this time. This is like our cities are today. There is the city and then there is farmland. Only today the farmland is farther away from the city than it was during this period of time. 🎑🌃 Around 1840 people begin to see a change in the way cities are built and what all is inside of them. During the first part of the nineteenth century everything began to become industrialized. Judging from the pictures of a catholic town in 1440 to a picture of the city from 1840 you can see that a lot of the 💒🕌🕍churches, walls, empty lands, clean water and air. By the time the industrial revolution finished taking over churches were no longer the dominant structure but factories were. The wall was taken down, once empty lands are full, and the water and air are u clean because of the pollution from the factories. There is also a change in the fact that now the foreground is occupied by a large prison. Like our cities are today. We now have large factories, polluted water and air, no walls, and our once empty lands (minus certain parks and landmarks that are preserved) are filled with houses, streets, factories, and skyscrapers. 🌃🏙🌉 In the 1920s we begin to see a city even closer to our cities today. Large streets were built but only so that the upper class could travel safely far away from the slums where the poor lived. Even though the slums occupied the greatest part of the city they were kept separate from the wealthy parts of the city. Many cities today are still separated like this you have your downtown areas with large streets, fancy cars, and clean transportation then you have what is called the “hood.” This is where people stay in barely tolerable conditions in modern slums or “the projects.” The also stay in apartments or houses that are not 100 percent up to par or as fancy and flashy as the downtown apartments. One thing that has not changed is now everyone shares the public space. 🛣🛤 In 1922 we begin to see another change with the auto-centered metropolis. This 50 foot boulevard would be the site of the mass production of Henry Fords model T car. Henry Ford others like him built communities around this which would require cars. 🚗🚙 In the late 1900s we begin to see something called suburbia. 🏡🏠🏡🏠This is our modern day suburbs. They are placed outside of the regular cities. All the houses are on a repeating pattern and look the same. Many regarded it as a cultural wasteland because it was all so much alike. No house in this area was different. Our modern suburbs come in two parts. We have what’s called gated communities which are communities within the city but they mimic the suburban areas. Everyone is not allowed into the community there is security, the houses all look similar, everyone who lives within the community go to the same school, they play at the same park, they get their mail at the same place all because these things are provided within the community. We also have our outside of the city suburbs which pretty much still mimic the suburbs from the late 1900’s. A suburb in Levittown New York was one of the first to offer cute, single family houses on its own lots to returning GI’s and white first time home owners. 👪👨‍👩‍👦‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👧👨‍👩‍👧Even though slavery and segregation are both ended today (for the most part 🙄) the majority of the suburbs are still filled with whites instead of black who live in the inner city which is high is crime vs the suburban areas. 🏡 In conclusion a lot has changed within these part thousand or so years. We went from having everything enclosed in a wall for us to being completely open minus suburban areas. We have also been industrialized so that we can have the tall skyscrapers and buildings that we see today.

[thetruthseekerway]

The Islamic Roots of the Modern Hospital

New Post has been published on https://www.truth-seeker.info/jewels-of-islam/the-islamic-roots-of-the-modern-hospital/

The Islamic Roots of the Modern Hospital

By David W. Tschanz

The Islamic Roots of the Modern Hospital

“The hospital shall keep all patients, men and women, until they are completely recovered. All costs are to be borne by the hospital whether the people come from afar or near, whether they are residents or foreigners, strong or weak, low or high, rich or poor, employed or unemployed, blind or signed, physically or mentally ill, learned or illiterate. There are no conditions of consideration and payment; none is objected to or even indirectly hinted at for non-payment. The entire service is through the magnificence of God, the generous one.”

Policy statement of the bimaristan of Al-Mansur Qalawun in Cairo, c. 1284CE

The modern West’s approach to health and medicine owes countless debts to the ancient past: Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome and India, to name a few. The hospital is an invention that was both medical and social, and today it is an institution we take for granted, hoping rarely to need it but grateful for it when we do. Almost anywhere in the world now, we expect a hospital to be a place where we can receive ease from pain and help for healing in times of illness or accidents.

We can do that because of the systematic approach — both scientifically and socially —to health care that developed in medieval Islamic societies. A long line of caliphs, sultans, scholars and medical practitioners took ancient knowledge and time-honored practices from diverse traditions and melded them with their original research to feed centuries of intellectual achievement and drive a continual quest for improvement. Their bimaristan, or asylum of the sick, was not only the true forerunner of the modern hospital, but also virtually indistinguishable from the modern multi-service healthcare and medical education center.

The bimaristan served variously as a center of treatment, a convalescent home for those recovering from illness or accident, a psychological asylum and a retirement home that gave basic maintenance to the aged and infirm who lacked a family to care for them.

Asylum of the Sick

The bimaristan was but one important result of the great deal of energy and thought medieval Islamic civilizations put into developing the medical arts. Attached to the larger hospitals — then as now — were medical schools and libraries where senior physicians taught students how to apply their growing knowledge directly with patients. Hospitals set examinations for the students and issued diplomas. The institutional bimaristans were devoted to the promotion of health, the curing of diseases and the expansion and dissemination of medical knowledge.

The First Hospitals

Although places for ill persons have existed since antiquity, most were simple, without more than a rudimentary organization and care structure. Incremental improvements continued through the Hellenistic period, but these facilities would barely be recognizable as little more than holding locations for the sick. In early medieval Europe, the dominant philosophical belief held that the origin of illness was supernatural and thus uncontrollable by human intervention: As a result, hospitals were little more than hospices where patients were tended by monks who strove to assure the salvation of the soul without much effort to cure the body.

Muslim physicians took a completely different approach. Guided by sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith) like “God never inflicts a disease unless He makes a cure for it,” collected by Bukhari, and “God has sent down the disease and the cure, and He has appointed a cure for every disease, so treat yourselves medically,” collected by Abu’d-Darda, they took as their goal the restoration of health by rational, empirical means.

Hospital design reflected this difference in approach. In the West, beds and spaces for the sick were laid out so that the patients could view the daily sacrament of the Mass. Plainly (if at all) decorated, they were often dim and, owing to both climate and architecture, often damp as well. In the Islamic cities, which largely benefited from drier, warmer climates, hospitals were set up to encourage the movement of light and air. This supported treatment according to humoralism, a system of medicine concerned with corporal rather than spiritual balance.

Mobile Dispensaries

The first known Islamic care center was set up in a tent by Rufaydah al-Aslamiyah during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. Famously, during the Ghazwah Khandaq (Battle of the Ditch), she treated the wounded in a separate tent erected for them.

Later rulers developed these forerunners of “mash” units into true traveling dispensaries, complete with medicines, food, drink, clothes, doctor and pharmacists. Their mission was to meet the needs of outlying communities that were far from the major cities and permanent medical facilities.

They also provided the rulers themselves with mobile care. By the early 12th-century reign of Seljuq Sultan Muhammad Saljuqi, the mobile hospital had become so extensive that it needed 40 camels to transport it.

Permanent Hospitals

The first Muslim hospital was only a leprosarium — an asylum for lepers — constructed in the early eighth century in Damascus under Umayyad Caliph Walid ibn ‘Abdul-Malik. Physicians appointed to it were compensated with large properties and munificent salaries. Patients were confined (leprosy was well known to be contagious), but like the blind, they were granted stipends that helped care for their families.

The earliest documented general hospital was built in 805 in Baghdad.

The earliest documented general hospital was built about a century later, in 805, in Baghdad, by the vizier to the caliph Harun ar-Rashid. Few details are known, but the prominence as court physicians of members of the Bakhtishu’ family, former heads of the Persian medical academy at Jundishapur, suggests they played important roles in its development.

Over the following decades, 34 more hospitals sprang up throughout the Islamic world, and the number continued to grow each year. In Kairouan, in present-day Tunisia, a hospital was built in the ninth century, and others were established at Makkah and Madinah. Persia had several: One in the city of Rayy was headed for a time by its Baghdad-educated native son, Muhammad ibn Zakariyyah ar-Razi.

In the 10th century five more hospitals were built in Baghdad. The earliest was established in the late ninth century by Al-Mu’tadid, who asked Ar-Razi to oversee its construction and operations. To start, Ar-Razi wanted to determine the most salubrious place in the city: He had pieces of fresh meat placed in various neighborhoods, and some time later, he checked to determine which had rotted the least and sited the hospital there. When it opened, it had 25 doctors, including oculists, surgeons and bonesetters. The numbers and specialties grew until 1258, when the Mongols destroyed Baghdad.

The vizier ‘Ali ibn Isa ibn Jarah ibn Thabit wrote in the early 10th century to the chief medical officer of Baghdad about another group:

I am very much worried about the prisoners. Their large numbers and the condition of prisons make it certain that there must be many ailing persons among them. Therefore, I am of the opinion that they must have their own doctors who should examine them every day and give them, where necessary, medicines and decoctions. Such doctors should visit all prisons and treat the sick prisoners there.

Shortly afterward a separate hospital was built for convicts, fully staffed and supplied.

In Egypt, the first hospital was built in 872 in the southwestern quarter of Fustat, now part of Old Cairo, by the ‘Abbasid governor of Egypt, Ahmad ibn Tulun. It is the first documented facility that provided care also for mental as well as general illnesses. In the 12th century, Saladin founded in Cairo the Nasiri hospital, which later was surpassed in size and importance by the Mansuri, completed in 1284. It remained the primary medical center in Cairo through the 15th century, and today, renamed Qalawun Hospital, it is used for ophthalmology.

In Damascus the Nuri hospital was the leading one from the time of its foundation in the mid-12th century well into the 15th century, by which time the city contained five additional hospitals.

In the Iberian Peninsula, Cordóba alone had 50 major hospitals. Some were exclusively for the military, and the doctors there supplemented the specialists who attended to the caliphs, military commanders and nobles.

Organization

In a fashion that would still be recognizable today, the typical Islamic hospital was subdivided into departments such as systemic diseases, surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics and mental diseases. The department of systemic diseases was roughly equivalent to today’s department of internal medicine, and it was usually further subdivided into sections dealing with fevers, digestive troubles, infections and more. Larger hospitals had more departments and diverse subspecialties, and every department had an officer-in-charge and a presiding officer in addition to a supervising specialist.

Hospitals were staffed also with a sanitary inspector who was responsible for assuring cleanliness and hygienic practices. In addition, there were accountants and other administrative staff to assure that hospital conditions—financial and otherwise—met standards. There was a superintendent, called a sa’ur, who was responsible for overseeing the management of the entire institution.

Physicians worked fixed hours, during which they saw the patients who came to their departments. Every hospital had its own staff of licensed pharmacists (saydalani) and nurses. Medical staff salaries were fixed by law, and compensation was distributed at a rate generous enough to attract the talented.

Funding for the Islamic hospitals came from the revenues of pious bequests called waqfs. Wealthy men and rulers donated property to existing or newly built bimaristans as endowments, and the revenues from the bequests paid for building and maintenance. To help make it pay, such revenues could come from any mix on the property of shops, mills, caravanserais or even entire villages. The income from an endowment would sometimes also cover a small stipend to the patient upon dismissal. Part of the state budget also went toward the maintenance of hospitals. To patients, the services of the hospital were free, though individual physicians occasionally charged fees.

Patient Care

Bimaristans were open to everyone on a 24-hour basis. Some only saw men while others, staffed by women physicians, saw only women; still others cared for both in separate wings with duplicate facilities and resources. To treat less serious cases, physicians staffed outpatient clinics and prescribed medicines to be taken at home.

Special measures were taken to prevent infection. Inpatients were issued hospital wear from a central supply area while their own clothes were kept in the hospital store. When taken to the hospital ward, patients would find beds with clean sheets and special stuffed mattresses ready. The hospital rooms and wards were neat and tidy with abundant running water and sunlight.

Inspectors evaluated the cleanliness of the hospital and the rooms on a daily basis. It was not unusual for local rulers to make personal visits to make sure patients were getting the best care.

The course of treatment prescribed by doctors began immediately upon arrival. Patients were placed on a fixed diet, depending on condition and disease. The food was of high quality and included chicken and other poultry, beef and lamb, and fresh fruits and vegetables.

The major criterion of recovery was that patients be able to ingest, at one time, an amount of bread normal to a healthy person, along with the roasted meat of a whole bird. If patients could easily digest it, they were considered recovered and subsequently released. Patients who were cured but too weak to discharge were transferred to the convalescent ward until they were strong enough to leave. Needy patients were given new clothes, along with a small sum to aid them in re-establishing their livelihood.

The 13th-century doctor and traveler ‘Abdul-Latif al-Baghdadi, who also taught at Damascus, narrated an amusing story of a clever Persian youth who was so tempted by the excellent food and service of the Nuri hospital that he feigned illness. The doctor who examined him figured out what the young man was up to and admitted him nevertheless, providing the youth with fine food for three days. On the fourth day, the doctor went to his patient and said with a rueful smile, “Traditional Arab hospitality lasts for three days: Please go home now!”

The quality of care was subject to review and even arbitration, as related by Ibn Al-Ukhuwa in his book Ma’alem al-Qurba fi Talab al-Hisba (The Features of Relations in Al-Hisba):

If the patient is cured, the physician is paid. If the patient dies, his parents go to the chief doctor; they present the prescriptions written by the physician. If the chief doctor judges that the physician has performed his job perfectly without negligence, he tells the parents that death was natural; if he judges otherwise, he tells them: Take the blood money of your relative from the physician; he killed him by his bad performance and negligence. In this honorable way, they were sure that medicine is practiced by experienced, well-trained persons.

In addition to the permanent hospitals, cities and major towns also had first aid and acute care centers. These were typically located at busy public places such as large mosques. Maqrizi described one in Cairo:

Ibn Tulun, when he built his world-famous mosque in Egypt, at one end of it there was a place for ablutions and a dispensary also as annexes. The dispensary was well equipped with medicines and attendants. On Fridays there used to be a doctor on duty there so that he might attend immediately to any casualties on the occasion of this mammoth gathering.

Medical Schools & Libraries

Because one of the major roles of the hospitals was the training of physicians, each hospital had a large lecture theater where students, along with senior physicians and medical officers, would meet and discuss medical problems in seminar style. As training progressed, medical students would accompany senior physicians to the wards and participate in patient care — much like a modern residency program.

Surviving texts, such as those in Ibn Abi Usaybi’ah’s ‘Uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibb’(Sources of Information on Classes of Physicians), as well as student notes, reveal details of these early clinical rounds. There are instructions on diets and recipes for common treatments, including skin diseases, tumors and fevers. During rounds, students were told to examine the patients’ actions, excreta, and the nature and location of swelling and pain. Students were also instructed to note the color and feel of the skin, whether hot, cool, moist, dry or loose.

Training culminated in an examination for a license to practice medicine. Candidates had to appear before the region’s government-appointed chief medical officer. The first step required was to write a treatise on the subject in which the candidate wanted to obtain a certificate. The treatise could be an original piece of research or a commentary on existing texts, such as those of Hippocrates, Galen and, after the 11th century, Ibn Sina, and more.

Candidates were encouraged not only to study these earlier works, but also to scrutinize them for possible errors. This emphasis on empiricism and observation rather than slavish adherence to authorities was one of the key engines of the medieval Islamic intellectual ferment. Upon completion of the treatise, candidates were interviewed at length by the chief medical officer, who asked them questions relevant to problems of the prospective specialties. Satisfactory answers led to licensed practices.

Another key aspect to the hospital, and of critical importance to both students and teachers, was the presence of extensive medical libraries. By the 14th century, Egypt’s Ibn Tulun Hospital had a library comprising 100,000 books on various branches of medical science. This was at a time when Europe’s largest library, at the University of Paris, held 400 volumes.

Cradle of Islamic medicine and prototype for today’s hospitals, bimaristans count among numerous scientific and intellectual achievements of the medieval Islamic world. But of them all, when ill health or injury strikes, there is no legacy more meaningful.

———

The author has advanced degrees in history and epidemiology. After 23 years in Saudi Arabia as an epidemiologist with Saudi Aramco, he lives in Florida.

AramcoWorld, March/April 2017, pp.22-27

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Psalm 121 - Interpreted

Daily Plenary Indulgence

Per Vatican II, one of the ways to gain a daily plenary indulgence is to read Scripture for ½ hour per day. For Pamphlets to Inspire (PTI), the Scripture readings that inspire us the most are the Psalms. Reading the Psalms and understanding their meaning can sometimes be challenging. In an attempt to draw more individuals to not only read the Psalms, but to understand their meaning, PTI has found an analysis of their meaning by St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. The method that will be employed is to list the chapter and verse, and then provide an explanation of that verse. Your interest in this subject will determine how often we will chat about this topic. The Bible that will be used is the official Bible of the Catholic Church and used by the Vatican, that is, the Douay-Rheims or Latin Vulgate version.

The desire and hope of the just for the coming of the kingdom of God, and the peace of His church.

1. I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord.

1. “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord.” Such is the language of God’s people, expressive of their joy on hearing the welcome news of their return to their country. Jeremias was the person to announce that, after seventy years, there would be an end to the captivity; and that the city and the temple would be rebuilt. Daniel, Aggeus, and Zacharias, who lived at the time the captivity was ended, foretold it more clearly; and they, therefore, created much joy among the people, when, on the completion of the seventy years, they said, “we shall go into the house of the Lord;” that is to say, we shall return to our country, where we shall get to see Mount Sion and the site of the house of the Lord; and then, when we shall have rebuilt the temple, we will again “go into the house of the Lord.” Christ, however, was the bearer of a far and away more happy message when he announced, “do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” and when he said more clearly, “in my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you; because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go and prepare a place for you I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am, you also may be.” Such news fills with unspeakable joy those who have learned the value “of going into the house of the Lord;” and to hold in that house, not the position “of a stranger or a foreigner, but of a fellow citizen with the Saints and a domestic of God’s.” That must be well-known to anyone reflected seriously on the saying of David, “they shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house;” and in another Psalm, “we shall be filled with the good things of thy house;” as also on that saying of the apostle, “that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” Such is the man who, from his heart, desires to go into the house of the Lord; and, therefore, from his heart sings, “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me. We shall go into the house of the Lord.” Now, “the sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God,” and, therefore, on the approach of death, or the termination of his exile and pilgrimage, instead of rejoicing, is troubled and laments, and justly, because, as he did not choose during his lifetime “to dispose in his heart to ascend by steps,” he cannot possibly expect to go up to the house of the Lord on high, but rather fears to go down to the prison of the damned, there to be punished forever.

2. Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem.

2. “Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem.” He tells us why the Jews were so overjoyed at the idea of their return to their country, and he says it arose from their remembrance of the time previous to the captivity, when they saw Jerusalem in her extent and in her splendor; for many who had been carried off as captives in their youth could have remembered Jerusalem as she then was; and in 1 Esdras 3, we read, that many returned from the captivity who had seen the city and the temple. These men, therefore, say, “our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem;” that is to say, because we recollected the time when we stood in your courts or in your gates, as it is more clearly expressed in the Hebrew. He names the courts or the gates, being, as it were, the vestibules of the city, rather than the public buildings or the streets, because it was at the gates that business was mostly transacted; it was there that the citizens mostly assembled, as we may infer from that verse in Proverbs, “her husband is honorable in the gates, when he sitteth among the senators of the land.” It also appears, from 2 Kings 18, that the gates of Jerusalem were not plain, ordinary gates, but that they were double gates, with a considerable space between them, which, perhaps, is here called “thy courts.” Thus we read in 2 Kings 18, “and David sat between the two gates.” And again, Jeremiah 39, “and all the princes of the king of Babylon came in and sat in the middle gate;” and, certainly, no small space was necessary to accommodate all those princes with their retinue. But how can we Christians say, “our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem,” when we were never in her courts? Well, we have been in her courts, otherwise we would not be now exiles and pilgrims, nor would Christ have redeemed us from captivity had we not been torn from our country and captives in a foreign land. We have been, then, in the courts of the heavenly Jerusalem, when, through our father Adam, we had possession of Paradise, that was the gate of the Paradise above; and the state of innocence then and there was the gate and the court to the state of glory; and that, that perhaps, that was the reason why the Holy Spirit made David write “in the courts,” instead of the streets of Jerusalem, that we may understand that this Psalm treats of the celestial, and not the earthly Jerusalem. “We have (therefore) rejoiced at the things that were said of thee,” when they said, “we should go into the house of the Lord,” because we remembered the time when “our feet were standing” in Paradise, and, consequently, in the courts of the Paradise above; and, from the idea we got of happiness in the place below, we can guess at the happiness that awaits us above. And though this great place in question is sometimes called the house of the Lord, sometimes the city of Jerusalem, still it is all one and the same place; for our heavenly country is one time called a kingdom, sometimes a city, and at other times a house. It is a kingdom by reason of the multitude and the variety of its inhabitants, as St. John observes, Apocalypse 7, “it is a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes, and peoples and tongues.” It is a city by reason of the friendship and fellowship that exists between the Saints and the blessed; for, however great their number may be, they know, recognize, and love each other as so many fellow citizens; and, finally, it is a house by reason of the elect having only one father, one inheritance, in which they are all brethren, under the one Father, God.

3. Jerusalem, which is built as a city, which is compact together.

3. “Jerusalem, which is built as a city, which is compact together.” The Prophet now, in the person of the pilgrims hastening to Jerusalem, begins to enumerate its praises, with a view of thereby stirring himself up to make greater haste in his ascent to it. He praises it, first, by reason of the supreme peace enjoyed by all its inhabitants, who were so united in the love of each other that they held all their property in common. “Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem;” that same Jerusalem whose buildings have so increased, and are daily increasing, that it has now become a city “which is compact together;” which is enjoyed and shared in common by all. Referring the passage to a future state it is much more beautiful and more sublime, for the heavenly Jerusalem is truly built up as a city; not that it is, strictly speaking, a city, nor that there were stones used in the building; still, it is built up as a city so long as the living stones, dressed by a consummate workman, and, after being actually squared and fitted, are placed on the building of the celestial habitation; from which it follows, that they who understand it not only bear all manner of persecutions with equanimity, but they even rejoice and glory in their tribulation, being perfectly sensible that it is in such manner they are squared and fitted for being built into and raised upon the heavenly habitation. One of these living stones, St. James, thus admonishes us, “my brethren, count it a great joy when you shall fall into diverse temptations.” Again, in our heavenly country, we shall have the real community of property; for, in the earthly Jerusalem such community of property was more a matter of fact than a matter of right, and arose from the mutual love of the inhabitants for each other; the same held for a time, in the infancy of the Church, as we read in the Acts, “neither did any of them say, that of the things which he possessed, anything was his own, but all things were common to them;” which still holds among those religious orders that observe the spirit of their institute. But in the heavenly Jerusalem there is complete community of property, the one God being all unto all; that is, the one and the same God being the honor, the riches, and the delight of all those who dwell in his house; and that most happy and most supreme abundance is really always the same, subject to no diminution or alteration whatever.

4. For thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord; the testimony of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord.

4. “For thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord; the testimony of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord.” The second subject of praise in Jerusalem is the number of its inhabitants; and this verse has a connection with the second verse, because he now assigns a reason for having said, or rather, for having put in the mouth of God’s people, “our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem;” for, though they were not all citizens of Jerusalem, but inhabitants of different cities, still they all came up to Jerusalem three times in every year. He, therefore, says, “our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem; for thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord;” that is, a great many tribes; such repetitions, in the Hebrew, being indicative of multitude; and thus, a great multitude assembled in Jerusalem, “the testimony of Israel to praise the name of the Lord;” explaining the cause of such an assembly in Jerusalem. It was according to “the testimony,” that is, the law that obliged all Israel to visit the temple of the Lord at stated times, it being the only temple in the land of promise; and there “praise the name of the Lord,” in acts of thanksgiving and praise. From another point of view, which we consider was more intended by the Holy Ghost, the meaning is: a reason is assigned for having said, “Jerusalem which is built as a city;” because it was built as a city, by reason of “the tribes that go up there;” that is, the holy souls from all tribes and nations, who go up to be built into the spiritual structures, that St. Peter writes of in his first epistle, chapter 2. Now, those blessed souls have gone up to that heavenly Jerusalem, “to praise the name of the Lord;” for that is their whole occupation there, to the exclusion of every other business. Hence, in Psalm 83, we have, “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee forever and ever;” and Tobias, speaking of the heavenly Jerusalem, has, “and alleluia shall be sung in its streets;” and such is “the testimony,” that is, the command, “to Israel,” that is, to the soul enjoying the beatific vision, that it should never desist from praise, inasmuch as it never ceases to love.

5. Because their seats have sat in judgment, seats upon the house of David.

5. “Because their seats have sat in judgment, seats upon the house of David.” The third matter of praise in Jerusalem is its being the seat of government, and having a royal palace in it; and the word “because” would seem to connect this verse with the preceding; for it looks like assigning a reason why God wished to have a temple, which the people were bound to visit three times a year, in Jerusalem, in consequence of being the residence of royalty, and the metropolis of the kingdom. He, therefore, says, “because there,” in Jerusalem, “seats have sat in judgment;” seats of king’s in succession, whose business it was to judge the people, “have sat,” have been firmly settled and fixed, not like that of Saul’s, which was for a while in Gabaa of Benjamin, and made no great stay there either; nor, like that of the judges who preceded the kings, who never had any certain fixed place for “sitting,” or delivering judgment, while the kings of the family of David set permanently in Jerusalem; and he, therefore, adds, “seats upon the house of David;” that is, the seat of royalty founded on the family of David, met with rest and stability; for God said to David, 2 Kings 7, “and thy house shall be faithful, and thy kingdom forever before thy face; and thy throne shall be firm forever.” From the expression, “seats upon the house of David,” we are not to infer that they sat in judgment on the family of David alone; for they had authority over the whole family of Jacob, that is, over the twelve tribes of Israel; but they are called seats upon the house of David, because all the kings of God’s people sprang from the family of David. All this is much more applicable to Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem. Because, lest the Jews may imagine that the words of the Psalm apply to that earthly Jerusalem, and not to the celestial Jerusalem, of which it was a figure, God permitted the seat of government to be removed from Jerusalem, and, furthermore, Jerusalem itself to be destroyed. The promise, then, applies to the Jerusalem above, and to Christ, according to the prophecy of Isaias 9; of Daniel 9; and of the Angel to the Virgin, Luke 1, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his Father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” In the strictest acceptance, then, of the words have “the seats sat in judgment” in the heavenly Jerusalem; because Christ’s throne and the thrones of those who reign with him have been established most firmly in heaven; and because those very saints who reign and judge with Christ are a thrown for God; for “the soul of the just is the seat of wisdom;” and those seats sit in judgment, according to the promise of our Lord, “you that have followed me shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And those seats are upon the house of David, because all the power of the saints, royal as well as judiciary, is derived from Christ, who was called the son of David in the Gospel, and who got the seat of David his father, and who reign forever in the house of Jacob, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end.

6. Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem; and abundance for them that love thee.

6. “Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem; and abundance for them that love thee.” The Prophet now exhorts the exiles, on their return from their captivity, to salute, even from afar, the city of Jerusalem, praying for peace and abundance on it, two things that contribute principally to the happiness of cities; for peace, without abundance, is only a firm hold of misery; and abundance, without peace, amounts to doubtful and uncertain happiness; but when both are combined, the city needs nothing necessary for its happiness. He, therefore, says, “pray for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem.” Pray ye to God for true and solid peace for your country, and for “abundance,” not only for the city of Jerusalem, but also “to them that love thee” you holy city.

7. Let peace be in thy strength: and abundance in thy towers.

7. “Let peace be in thy strength: and abundance in thy towers.” He dictates the very words in which those who pray for peace and abundance to Jerusalem are to salute her. When you salute her say ye, “let peace be in thy strength, and abundance in thy towers;” that is to say, may your walk be always secure and fortified, thereby ensuring perfect peace and quiet to all who dwell within them; “and abundance in thy towers;” no lack of meat or drink in your public buildings and private houses.

8. For the sake of my brethren, and of my neighbors, I spoke peace of thee.

9. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I have sought good things for thee.

8. "For the sake of my brethren, and of my neighbors, I spoke peace of thee."

9. "Because of the house of the Lord our God, I have sought good things for thee."

8-9. Now, the two last verses, in reference to the heavenly Jerusalem, though they imply prayers for peace and abundance, still they do not mean to insinuate that there can ever possibly be a want of either there, when we read in Psalm 147, “who hath placed peace in thy borders; and filleth thee with the fat corn?” They, therefore, merely express the pious affection we cherish for the blessings of the Jerusalem above, just as we have in the Apocalypse, “salvation to our God who sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb.”