... alienate the vast majority of your audience ...

Seriously? ... well, judging by the letters so far, maybe.

But that's because too many Salon readers seem to be humorless, self-absorbed rage-aholics. "I criticize, therefore I am." Honestly, sometimes the Letters sections read like freshman "litrichoor" essays - everyone's got to find fault, or be thought to have not gotten it.

I thought the Dylan lyric was a touch of humor, particularly since strait-laced Col. Tigh seemed to be the one most affected by it. "There's too much confusion here!" he yells at his friend, Bill Adama, after Adama excuses himself from Saul's long, confused tirade to go back to the trial. It was surreal - like the shared dream sequences that the Cylons Sharon and Caprica 6 and Cylon-touched human President Rosalin - shared.

The whole series has often gone to the surreal, the mystical, blurring the lines between mundane reality and something more. Are the gods - our familiar Greek pantheon - real? Their oracles sure seem to be. Their ancient temples sure seem to hold ancient powers. But is it just high technology? Or are the people of the Twelve Colonies really different kinds of humans from us, their distant cousins?

Who knows? Science fiction typically involves some suspension of disbelief. Less, maybe, for the "hard core" techno stories (unless they use "technobabble" to explain how the impossible things work, like Trek), but it's always there.

We can also choose to accept it when authors wink at us, by sharing a litte "in" joke. Like when Scott Adams walked onto the Zocalo in Babylon 5 and inquired if anyone had seen his dog and his cat. "They're plotting to take over the universe."

You don't have to like it. You can validate yourself by expressing angry condemnation.

But maybe you just didn't get it.

Thanks, Jonathan. As I recall, "fandom" absolutely hated Star Wars, too, when it first came out. The responses in the "sf" mags were stuffy and superior and uniformly negative.

Now, your "fen" have "telefiction" groups that celebrate not only the whole Star Wars series, but Battlestar Galactica, as well - both the new and old versions.

You can restrict yourself to the old, musty tomes (I don't think anything you cited was newer than 20 years old, and tended toward the 30-60 years-ago range), reading and re-reading your classics if that's all you're open to do. You can also unclench a little and take fun and excitement where it's offered.

BSG is space opera. Get over it. As science fiction, it's not that bad. As far as production values, characterization, plot, and depth, it's pretty damned good. And in an era of "reality" television, endless brain-dead "game" shows for people dumber than fifth graders, and "news" restricted to celebrity trivia and right wing bull, Battlestar Galactica is a real standout.

Plus, you can even turn off the old tube and read between episodes.

Albuquerque's Voter ID law was recently struck down by the courts. If you voted in person, you had to show a valid ID; if you mailed in an absentee ballot, nada.

Clearly, this was unequal treatment. But it's funny that Republicans seem to be happy as clams with minimal safeguards on the mail-in vote. Mail-in is the easiest way to cheat. If one were an apartment owner, or ran a retirement home, or Alzheimers' facility, for example, one might send for, receive, and vote vast numbers of ballots that might otherwise be wasted on registered Democrats. Retail voter fraud, as it were. Not an option for the average citizen.

You know, the newspapers and police never got around to investigating that "13 year old boy" who received a voter registration in the mail. Who sent in the application? And why were they so stupid as to send it to his home? It was almost as if they wanted this to be a big news story. Coincidentally, I'm sure, the parents and their pro-bono attorneys were from the Republican Party.

Huh?!?

No.

The "worker ants of science", eh? Let me assure you that they only look like ants from the outside - the far, distant outside. Within the programming world, individuals enjoy something like rock star status. Other programmers are honored to contribute to their code. Have you ever heard of the Open Source Foundation? Of course not, and you never will, not unless or until it brings down Micro$oft. And probably not even then...

Our theology of "The Market" doesn't get this model, either. Why would people labor long hours, on the minimal compensation of the grad student, doing work that isn't part of their assigned job, for the mere satisfaction of producing something good, something useful, something really cool? Something that their peers, the so-called ants, will be impressed by? Businessmen only understand "shareholder value" which is not to be confused with real value, or any value at all.

The Internet phenomenon, initiated with a DARPA study, nurtured by Senator Al Gore, and designed and coded in the rebellious universities of the 1960s, was unpredictable by our current simpleminded dogmas of "the market" and "celebrity." These guys were neither good looking, cut, nor profitable. They were the geeks and nerds.

Time for a better understanding of how people work.

And - lest I forget - don't confuse "programming" with "science."

Thanks for this article, Mr. Keillor! I'm sorry you attract so many flamers. They're addicted to the sight of their own ASCII. Back in your day, a person had to write good to be published; there were editors, revisions, rewrites, proofs, and finally (maybe) your deathless prose would emerge from the presses and be eagerly devoured by the public. Now, any drooling key-pounder can present his spittle-flecked blatherings to the ENTIRE WORLD in a matter of seconds. And they do. Boy, do they ever.