Gettin' a little worried....

OK, so we're coming up on the last quarter of November, and still no word on a Season 6. Michelle? Cricket? Any input?

Peace Kevin

in article [email], KTrick45 at [email] wrote on 11/18/00 11:28 AM:

On the daria chat, i forget when. But i found the transcript of the chat where the voices of daria, trent, jane, and tom chatted on the daria web page.

05:55:05 PM> MODMSG anf2justinsync:daria, when will new episodes air?? 05:55:22 PM> mtvdaria:Next winter. I'm so very tired.

I dont know if this is true or not. probably not. This conversation happened some time in August.

"krel" wrote in message news:B63C1D22.132%[email]...

happened

This might refer to the season 5 episodes.

Martin.

It does. Most of the season 5 episodes would have to be in postproduction by now if they are to air in February. There's been no word on season a season 6 through any mainstream channel. But if we all sent in our letters and lasanga boxes, then Daria's fate is in the hands of the suits that control Mtv. *choke*

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

Ok, let's not panic. We haven't heard any word that there WON'T be a sixth season. I'm betting down the stretch we will get an answer.

Jeff M.

KTrick45 asks

I haven't heard anything regarding Season 6 yet either. Maybe MTV is still recounting the votes by hand. ;-)

All I can tell y'all is, until we hear something, keep sending those letters -- it can't hurt. And unlike a vote cast in Palm Beach County, your vote for Season Six will most likely COUNT, no matter how many holes you punch in it!

;-)  ;-)  ;-)

Cricket

*SAVE DARIA!* Write to:

Mr. Brian Graden PRESIDENT of Programming MTV Networks 1515 Broadway New York, NY 10036

Hey man, how do we know they haven't tampered with those votes? MTV's capacity for evil knows no bounds. :)

Just make sure you don't make a mistake and vote for Undressed, The Movie or some nonsense.

Jeff M.

In article ,

Obviously that explains the weekly Real World/Road Rules marathons of episodes that are airing for the 1,021st time each this year. :-)

Or The Brothers Grunt reunion show. <shudders>

A.J.

Don't forget Thanksgiving. I think they've got one set up for that day!

Not unless Ed, Edd n' Eddy goes off the air on Cartoon Central. :)

Jeff M.

You Europeans are having a good laugh at our expense over this, aren't you? I'm not being bitter, I have to admit we as a voting public have had this coming for a while.

I really am interested in how people outside the US view these events. Seriously. Comments?

As far as Daria goes, between me and some friends we've sent in countless letters and several lasanga boxes. I'm hoping for season six...but something in my gut tells me not to count on it too much. I don't think, in the eyes of the suits at MTV, that "small but vocal" stacks up to target demographics.

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

It seems Americans where presented with two candidates nobody really wanted. I'm sympathetic as in about 6 months, we in the UK will also be presented with two aspirants for the highest office that nobody really wants.

yeah. it's a shame i think, especially because i guess this next general election will be the first one i can vote for (i'm 18 in 3 weeks). i'd really like to think my vote meant a little more, but both candidates are so awful it's hard to be that bothered about who wins.

sanna of M.U.F.F.I.N.S. writes:

Both? You'll have at least three choices, and unlike in the US the third party (the Liberal wotsits) does have quite a clout with around 10% of the seats in Parliament.

-Shez.

Yeah, I'm really late with this. So sue me.

Shez wrote:

You mean the Liberal Democrats?

(Oh thank you thank you, Rory Bremner, wherever you are.)

(Oh yeah, about Rory Bremner... I watched an episode of "Whose Line...?" UK in which they were doing Remote Control about breeding chickens... Rory was "Question Time" and he concluded by saying, "Now, don't be chicken for a day. Be a chicken for a lifetime, by voting Liberal Democrat next Thursday [ed: it could've been Tuesday; I'm doing this by memory].")

(So that's how I know about the Liberal Democrat party.)

LI

"sanna" wrote in message news:[email]...

Remember that you're voting for the MP who'll represent you in the Commons. You might find that, even if you decide there's nothing to choose between the leading parties' leaders, there is something to to make you prefer someone among the parliamentary candidates in your consituency.

In the last parliamentary elections, I found the document "The Common Good" URL: http://www.tasc.ac.uk/cc/cbc/cg.htm to be very good in encouraging me to vote on issues and principles, rather than on personalities.

Martin.

An excellent point. I picked one candidate over the other because I preferred what he said his administration would do as a matter of policy, as opposed to what his opponent would do. Each voter shoud ask himself: which is the way the country should be run?

The obvious concern, of course, is that my candidate of choice IS a career politician. i.e. he tells lies for a living. WILL he do what he says he's going to do? Or is he all talk before the election? If I could accurately predict such things, I'd be the center of my own religion.

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

In article , sanna <riotstar@ antisocial.compensation> writes

Fortunately, in the UK, we DON'T vote for a leader - we vote for the party with the least unbelievable policies. So you shouldn't find it such a problem after all.

  :-|

I,JM fzfpqkyivvVqppkpWqppkkivvZpzkkkvi

both (or all, if you want to vote for a party with no chance of winning) of them are pretty sucky.

In article , sanna <riotstar@ antisocial.compensation> writes

So start your own non-sucky party. But don't invite Cynthia Payne

Do you deliver your muffins?

I,JM

If you want my personal opinion, a big part of the problem is that there has come to be a stigma associated with the field of politics. A field where you can get power by doing the best job of selling yourself and being the best liar attracts the self-serving, greedy [DELETED]. As this becomes more widespread and, thanks partially to media coverage, more accepted, people who value a reputation for integrety or aren't willing to play dirty -- which has become necessary to succeed -- will avoid that line of work all together. This, in turn, leaves the field open for more of the [DELETED]. In modern politics, scum floats to the top.

Has anyone (who cares) read "Primary Colors"? The book that was a work of fiction and in which any resemblance to real persons or events -- such as, say, the Bill Clinton presidential campaign -- is purely coincidental? It was made into a fair movie staring John Travolta and Kathy Bates. It's the best illistration I can think of offhand of what I'm talking about.

Still, I believe you've got to take resposibility. That means you still make a choice, even if you're not real thrilled with any of your available options. THAT's what I meant when I said : "I have to admit we as a voting public have had this coming for a while." The up side of this term's election mess is that maybe for the next election we'll have more than 40% of our voting population involved for a change.

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

In article ,

aren't you?

had this

events.

And on Monday, those lucky Canadians will try to pick from five candidates nobody really wants.

There's a lot of it goin' around, I guess.

The thing that really surprises me is Bush trying to stop the recounts, which essentially sends the message that the actual vote isn't of any great importance, which can only be bad for future election turnouts. You might as well just elect people by opinion poll given his attitude. The stupid thing is, if people hadn't kept interfering the recounts would probably all have been done by now.

From what I've seen of the recounting, it seems to be a painstaking and accurate process so I can't see why anyone would reasonably object to it, after all whoever wins the election is going to be in power for several years, so it's worth taking a week or two to find out what the actual votes were, it's not like Clinton is going to be leaving office in the next couple of days or anything, as I understand it he stays in power until January which is plenty of time to count the votes as many times as anyone could wish for.

The most dodgy thing about the whole election though seems to be those forms which were so badly designed that thousands of people voted for the wrong person in error. It will be interesting to see what happens in the cases being brought by the affected voters, on the face of it there seems to be a good case for re-polling the affected counties with properly designed voting forms. There was an article in comp.risks by someone from the ACM saying that there is clear evidence that the Palm Beach voting process was fundamentally flawed. Given that the entire election result may hinge on this, it must rate as one of the all-time human factors gaffs. (Haven't the people who designed these systems heard of usability testing? It would seem not.) The only worse case I can think of offhand is where aircraft controls were so badly designed that pilots are believed to have crashed their planes by pressing the wrong switches in error.

-Shez.

"Pierces888" wrote in message news:[email]... [on the presidential election]

you?

Only when some of your commentators talk about "America's ancient democratic traditions." You've not been a country that long!

I'm puzzled as to why voting machines are used when they seem so prone to user error (and legal challenge). We manage with electors using a pencil to mark a cross against their preferred candidate. We have hand counts in every county for every election, and still get the results the next day. Granted, we are a much smaller population, but if we can find enough tellers to do this, surely out of America's larger population each county could find sufficient tellers?

You might find the BBC's coverage interesting. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1036000/1036650.stm

You'll find election discussion at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/newsid_1015000/1015061.stm

something

I fear you're right.

Martin.

wrote:

I'm still hopeful, but growing uncertain.

Jeff M.

Martin Sylvester wrote:

No. Please don't send ANYONE to ANY mention of the BBC News when it comes to reporting American news. After several months of listening to the BBC World Service on NPR (National Public Radio), I've come to the conclusion that the BBC is horrifyingly against unbiased coverage of American news. The atmosphere is very anti-American, and they often twist situations around to make them seem more dire than they are, so that they can once again laugh at "us stupid Americans". When they were doing commentary right at the beginning of the election dispute, one of the BBC commentators had the nerve to ask why we "had such a peculiar way of voting for president"... Laura Ingraham, an American commentator whom I normally can't stand, made me feel proud by saying that "it's because here in America, we actually have a representative democracy".

I repeat my original message: do NOT send ANYONE over to ANY BBC News coverage of ANY American incident EVER again. Understand?

LI

"Lady Interference" wrote in message news:[email]...

Nice to see you posting again!

Understand, yes. Will comply, no! 8-)

Pierce *wanted* to know how present events in the USA are perceived overseas. A laudable desire.

BBC journalists and commentators are just as robust dealing with UK politicians and processes, but, even so, I don't rely solely on UK-based media to tell me about UK events.

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion; What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' ev'n devotion!"

Martin.

In article , "Martin Sylvester" wrote:

News

UK-based

He's right. Americans do not realize the pasting UK politicians take from the UK media, because of the more reverential attitude over there.

Thanks for the backup, Sylvester. I was interested it what "foreigners" think because my majors are political science and anthropology. I'm facinated by what creates different views on a given topic, how people in other countries or cultures act differently to something than I would, and why. And if I can discuss it with people who DO agree with me on some things I'm interested (say, that Daria is one of the best shows on television currently) so much the better. Although I'm not especially familiar with the BBC, I can sympathize with LI's gut-level reaction to a media organ. I've done it often enough myself. Because of the powers and liberties granted the fourth estate by our [interpretations of the] Constitution, there is a chance to really abuse that power, and the field attracts a lot of career scumbags as a result.

Not unlike politics, come to that.

Pierce

Physically unremarkable

"Pierces888" wrote in message news:[email]...

You're welcome!

Hope that URL was helpful.

I was at an emergency planning exercise recently, and the task of keeping the news media satisfied, while trying to protect casualties and relatives from unwanted, intrusive, aggressive, in-your-face media interrogation, was referred to by one experienced participant as "feeding the monster."

The shame of it is, that people who have the skills and the standards to serve the community well in politics or in journalism might choose other careers, because of the poor regard in which society as a whole holds politicans and journalists. And it's very hard for those politicians and journalists who are genuinely committed to the highest ethical standards to maintain their morale, when the reputations of their professions are so thoroughly damaged by some of their colleagues.

I think this might create a vicious circle that could be a serious threat to democracy. Firstly, by destroying the trust between citizens and those who inform them, and between citizens and those who govern in their name. And secondly, by driving away from politics and journalism those who see these professions as a service to others, leaving the field clear for the venal and the self-serving.

Martin.

In article , Lady Interference writes

So stop being stupid then :-)

But you don't. You don't have proportional representation therefore a greater number of people can have voted for the candidate who actually takes office; which appears to be what is going to happen. And before you flame me let me just point out that WE HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM IN THE U.K.

At least in the U.K. we get to hear news about things going on over fifty miles away :-)

I,JM fzfpqkyivvVqppkpWqppkkivvZpzkkkvi

In article , "I,JM" wrote:

THE

Thank you. I'm amazed at how many people from countries with parliamentary systems like yours don't realize this. I've recently had to point out to several Canadians critical of the US system that this happened in Canada just over 20 years ago (the 1979 election in which Joe Clark became PM).

Has this actually happened in the UK, that the party with fewer votes came into power?

Many times and with both main parties. Throughout the Twentieth Century it was the rule rather thatn the exception.

The typical vote split is around 40% +/-5% for each of the Tories and Labour, and about 20% for the Liberals* . Despite this, our constituency-based voting system results in either the tories or labour almost always ending up with more than 50% of the seats in parliament, the extra seats being at the expense of the Liberals whose vote tends to be spread more evenly across the country resulting in them only getting about 2% of the seats.

Last election was unusual I think in that I believe Labour got more than 50% of the vote, and the Liberals actually got around 60 seats (10%), although this is still short of what PR would give them. If we had a PR system, the Liberals would usually end up holding the balance of power which would have prevented some of the extremist governments we've seen.

*(the figures will differ in Scotland, Wales though where nationalist parties have quite a large vote, and Northern Ireland where people normally vote on tribal lines (rather like what seems to happen in elections in some African countries))

Incidentally I've finally updated my online diary! (After six months of no entries.) The two (count 'em!) new entries do mention the US elections, but don't mention Daria, although they are heavily otaku flavoured. http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/diary/ Out of curiosity, do many people have kanji fonts installed on their browsers? I link to one or two Japanese pages whose text may just look like modem vomit unless your browser is configured to display Japanese writing correctly.

-Shez.

In article ,

labour

parliament,

to

getting

Which is why I've maintained that in parliamentary systems the Parliament doubles as a legislature and an electoral college, whereas these are separate bodies in the US. One of the reasons the US politicians will probably not abolish the Electoral College is that it tends to eliminate chances for third parties. The Republicans and Democrats like their century-and-a-half duopoly.

A good example was in 1992, where Ross Perot's Reform Party got about 20% of the popular vote, but no electoral votes at all, because he won no states - in fact in only two states (Utah and Maine) did he outpoll even ONE of the two major candidates. The Reform Party got less than one percent of the vote in the 2000 election, and may not exist in 2004.

The last time a third party actually won states was in 1968: George Wallace's regional-based American Independent Party got 46 electoral votes but Nixon, though virtually tied with Humphrey in the popular vote, got a clear electoral majority.

As much fun as all these political musings are/can be, to drag this thread back on topic, has there been any word yet that there'll be a sixth season of Daria? I'd like to know one way or the other if my plea to MTV was a waste of $1.50 postage or not... (I say a waste because corporations are famous for making decisions that fly in the face of public opinion long before making the decision public, not the fact that I used my letter to lobby for another season)...

I was going to ask you the same question. It's December and there's still no word. Are they still in negotiation or are they holding off until the last moment to tell us?

Jeff M.

In article ,

plea

still no

last

I suppose MTV can take as long to make a decision as the Florida courts. There! Now the political musings ARE on-topic! :-) :-)

(If MTV fails to make a decision, does the House of Representatives decide? Or the Supreme Court? :-) :-) :-) )

Nice tie-in :) My guess the decision goes to a higher power... the shareholders...

I don't pretend to know anything about the infrastructure at MTV or Viacom, but I SERIOUSLY doubt the suits that work with the big numbers up top in MTV, it's parent company, or any investors have much of an emotional investment in the creative output to be making any decisions based on such considerations as whether a character is beloved by its core audience.

And even if they DID study their own product enough to make informed decisions on actual content, that might not SAVE Daria; conceivibly it could do just the opposite. GOOD is what produces some publicity and revenue for their investment, BAD is whatever doesn't. By MTV standards -- as viewed by outsiders and what I envision as "shareholders" -- Daria is very, very "fringe".

Which is, of course, why WE love her.

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

In article ,

Viacom, but I SERIOUSLY doubt the suits that work with the big numbers up top in MTV, it's parent company, or any investors have much of an emotional investment in the creative output to be making any decisions based on such considerations as whether a character is beloved by its core audience.

And even if they DID study their own product enough to make informed decisions on actual content, that might not SAVE Daria; conceivibly it could do just the opposite. GOOD is what produces some publicity and revenue for their investment, BAD is whatever doesn't. By MTV standards -- as viewed by outsiders and what I envision as "shareholders" -- Daria is very, very "fringe".

Which is, of course, why WE love her.

Pierce

My shareholders remark was an offhand comment, I doubt anyone owning stock or tradable instruments in Viacom has a clue that MTV produces Daria, or any of the other shows. It's amazing the number of people who own stock in companies that are completely clueless as to what the company produces, let alone owns, they are only interested in the price of the share rising and receiving a dividend every 6 months. I'd be surprised is "Daria" or any of the other shows MTV produces even registers on management radar above a certain level at MTV. To get the revenue to roll in you need to capture an audience, and I wonder if Daria captures a large enough segment of MTV's audience to warrant Mr Graden (or his bosses, or the bean counters, or whomever) approving another season. Unfortunately, the bean counters would look at the investment required to create a season of animation (and even though it's being produced in Korea, cheap labour, animation is investment intensive) there may not be enough "audience" to justify season 6 (by beancounter logic).

Publicity is not enough.

In article , Pierces888 writes

I find it amazing in the extreme that it could possibly be so close when, in a country which has recently INCREASED its output of greenhouse gasses by 12% (yes, that's *twelve*) one candidate openly implies that he doesn't want to do anything about it because it's not his problem. Also, I think that all the punch cards ballots that weren't punched right through should automatically be counted as a vote for the above mentioned candidate on the grounds that anyone stupid enough not to be able to work out how to make a hole in sheet of cardboard deserves the idiot.

Pity for the rest of the world though.

As the FLA business, well, it was bound to happen one day. A system of proportional representation (i.e. where every individual's vote actually counts) probably would have helped here, plus a consistent method of voting and counting throughout the entire U.S. Has anyone here got the actual totals to hand - I'm betting they diverge by a lot more that 900.

Who's betting that they'll get either of these sorted out inside the next four years? Not me.

Be excellent to each other, I,JM fzfpqkyivvVqppkpWqppkkivvZpzkkkvi

In article ,

still

letters

vote for

in it!

you?

this

As I've been saying at work (not specifically refering to Europe)... considering the number of countries where this dispute would be resolved by one candidate putting the other in front of a firing squad or leading tanks into the capital to seize power, I don't think the world really has a lot to laugh at.

We're more having a bit o a scare of the suggestion that the votes shouldn't be counted, I haven't followed the whole case tho, but it broke into the last minute of sundays futurama episode!

Well over to something more serious, where and what can I vote for about season 6? tell me what I need to do, and if it requires no effort at all I'll do it as jane would say:P

cheers

"Babar" asks:

Babar: send your letter to the address at the end of this post.

Cricket

*SAVE DARIA!* Write to:

Mr. Brian Graden PRESIDENT of Programming MTV Networks 1515 Broadway New York, NY 10036