Last night's episode of The West Wing made an interesting point about where you can draw the line between truth and fiction.
Recently, my friend James and I discussed the promo for the episode, and James mused whether the West Wing was becoming too distant a parallel universe from our own. Granted, a show about a fictional left-of-centre government in Washington is always going to be light years apart from the Bush jr. circus that currently exists. But I wondered for a while if he did have a point...
After all, the moment September 11th happened, all semblance of reality was shattered for the West Wing, which chose to address real life concerns in a very poetic manner (ie. the wonderful episode Issac & Ishmael). And yet, last night's episode about a fictional nuclear test by the Israelies certainly hit home when one of my teacher colleagues remarked how scary it was that the show was covering such real world topics so well.
Perhaps it is better to work with allusion and metaphor after all. I certainly have no problem with the West Wing trying to present the trials and tribulations of the world in an intellectual (and yes, poetic) manner. It certainly silences complaints from right-wing neo-cons who don't know the difference between a proper metaphor and a jar of peanut butter.
First Impressions
My students have started to read my blog. Be afraid...very afraid...
Actually, they've been quite complimentary to it so far. All I can say is that I breed good history geeks. 
TV Sadness
I'm still trying figure out if this is Angel's final season. Anyone out there have any information about this? What am I going to do with only The West Wing to watch, and Enterprise spelling the death knell for Star Trek? The new Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica better get a move on...
