For All Mankind 5.1: On the Intersection of Alternate and Real Histories

For All Mankind is back on Apple TV with the debut first episode of its 5th Season.

As has been usual with the more recent seasons, my favorite part of this season was the alternate history set up which we see at the beginning of this first episode of this new season.  As a reminder, the alternate history split in this series hinges on the Soviet Union beating us to the Moon back in the late 1960s.  Among the profoundly important consequences for the human species is that we have a much more active ensuing space program, as we vie with the Soviets for a predominant position off our planet.

My favorite alternate history flourishes in the 2004-2012 years that are the foundation of this 5th season are:

• John Lennon and Jay Z have a joint concert in this period, because, as was already established in an earlier season, Lennon was not assassinated at the end of 1980 in this alternate history.  Readers of my blogs will know this is so important to me: I wrote a short story, made into a radio play, then expanded into a novel in which John Lennon was not assassinated and The Beatles are still together in the mid-1990s.  I think that most assassinations are errors in the cosmos, and I feel especially good when an alternate history corrects them.
• I also loved the fact in this alternate history that JFK Jr is expected to run for President in 2012, meaning he didn't die in the plane that fell into the sea with his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister, as they did in our all too often so cruel reality we apparently all inhabit off-screen.  In the alternate history portrayed in For All Mankind, former President Ted Kennedy -- yes, he's elected President in this series in 1972 -- Chappaquiddick didn't happen -- but dies a few years before 2012 of a brain tumor.  A good alternate history always mixes in some elements of real history to make the fiction convincing.  In our real history, Teddy died of a brain tumor in 2009.  

Now, on this last point of JFK Jr being expected to run for President in 2012, I just yesterday completed my review of Love Story, the nine-episode narrative of JFK Jr's relationship with Carolyn Bessette, and how it ended so terribly tragically.   Talk about about the intersection of alternate and real history, you couldn't ask for a better example of the first episode of this season of For All Mankind debuting the day after Love Story concluded.

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You'll notice that I haven't said anything about the story that continued after the alternate history Intro in For All Mankind 5.1.   That's because I didn't find anything of really exceptional interest in the ensuing story.   But not to worry -- I intend to keep watching and reviewing every episode.

See also For All Mankind 4.1: Back in Business and Alternate Reality ... 4.2: The Fate of Gorbachev ... 4.3-4.4: The Soviet Union in the 21st Century, On Earth and Mars ... 4.5: Al Gore as President and AI ... 4.6: Aleida and Margot ... 4.7: Dev on Mars ... 4.8: Sergei and Margot ... 4.9: Progress ... 4.10: Earth vs. Mars

And see also For All Mankind 3.1: The Alternate Reality Progresses ... 3.2: D-Mail ... 3.3-3.4: The Race

And see also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not the End

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Lessons and Inspirations from Ted Kennedy's Funeral

I just heard Mark Leibovich of The New York Times tell Andrea Mitchell on MSNNC that Ted Kennedy enjoyed watching 24 on DVDs ... take that, Keith Olbermann :)

Ted Kennedy, Jr's speech at the funeral earlier today was powerful indeed. I hadn't heard him speak ever before, and was moved and mightily impressed by his delivery and his words. The clarity of vision in this family is remarkable.

Barack Obama's eulogy was excellent, but I wish he'd picked up what Ted Kennedy, III (11 years old, and a real winner) said earlier in the funeral about health care, quoting his grandfather's words that health care is a right not a privilege. The Republicans in the audience need to hear that, as often as possible.

Ted Kennedy's journey will end in a few hours at Arlington Cemetery, next to his two brothers. But as Ted Kennedy, Jr. said at the end of his oration, quoting again from his father, "the work goes on".

Thoughts on the Speeches at Ted Kennedy's Wake

The memorial service for Ted Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston earlier tonight was extraordinary. Almost all of the tributes were superb. Here are the ones that struck the deepest chords in me ...

Joseph Kennedy, II, former Congressman, son of Robert Kennedy, set the tone with captivating anecdotes and restatement of Ted's political ideals. I hope he runs for Ted's Senate seat.

Chris Dodd spoke of what it was like to have Ted Kennedy as a close political ally and friend. I was impressed with Dodd during the 2008 Democratic primary. He has a crispness of vision, and should play a crucial role in the battle ahead this September for health care.

John Kerry's speech at the Democratic convention in Denver last year wasn't carried live by the networks and all-news cable. But it was one of the best at the convention, and his speech at the JFK Library tonight was the most politically powerful. (I saw Kerry briefly this June, as he was boarding a boat in Hyannis. I was too far away to tell him how much I appreciate his continued fight for a better America.)

Orrin Hatch's speech was also impressive, especially given that he, too, was a close friend but also a staunch political foe of Ted Kennedy. I wonder - will Hatch search his soul and find room in there to do the right thing and help all Americans get good, affordable health care? Maybe.

Joe Biden gave another very moving tribute, as only someone who has had such close personal tragedy in his own life could provide. I don't know what the Vice President has been doing behind the scenes in the health care legislation discussions, but I'd like to see him set loose to ply his unique political skills with recalcitrant Senators.

John Culver, former Senator and Ted's Harvard classmate, provided comic relief, in the best sense of the phrase at a time like this. His story of how he wound up on a small boat with Ted, inveighed to go sailing, brought tears of pure laughter to my eyes.

In contrast, Caroline Kennedy's concluding tribute brought tears of something else. As did Joe, she brought home what it meant to have Ted as an uncle. I still can't forgive Gov. Patterson in New York for not appointing her to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. Our state and our nation would have benefited greatly.

Tomorrow Barack Obama gives the eulogy at Ted Kennedy's funeral.

And then the full business of governance resumes in September. There are two possible paths to universal health care. One comes from a few Republicans and recalcitrant Democrats truly taking a chance on reform and the American people. The other comes from Obama leading a take-no-prisoners charge, and getting the needed legislation with no Republican help. I'll take whichever works.

Edward M. Kennedy

It is beyond sad that Edward M. Kennedy has died. It is deeper, bigger, connected to something far more profound in the cosmos and the lives of people in my generation than just sadness.

I remember Walter Cronkite announcing the death of John F. Kennedy on television in 1963. I remember the headline on some New York paper in 1968 ... "Now Bobby..." Two of the worst memories in my life.

I don't think our culture has ever fully recovered from those losses. But Ted Kennedy tried. I regretted that he couldn't make it to the Presidency in 1980. But he made a difference. Perhaps most importantly in his endorsement of Barack Obama in that razor close primary with Hillary Clinton. It made a difference. It helped change America and the world.

At least Ted Kennedy died of natural causes. But death is never good. He could have lived a few more years, even a few more decades.

But we're fortunate that he lived and worked for the best instincts in America as long as he did. Although he won't be able to help directly in the great battle of our time, the battle for universal health care in America, his spirit won't be very far. Rest in peace. Your dream, our dream, will never die.

Why Are Some Republicans Morally Bankrupt?

I previously wrote about Republican insensitivity to the health of children, among other things, in Why Are Republicans So Mean?, but two displays in recent weeks have gone well beyond even that level of meanness, and so require brief, special condemnation:

1. In February, when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to work after being operated upon for pancreatic cancer, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) opined that she'd be dead within nine months. "Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer," Bunning told a group at the Hardin County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. He apologized two days later (but misspelled her name).

2. And just yesterday - Friday, March 6 - Rush Limbaugh remarked about Obama's health care legislation initiative, ""Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill."


What is wrong with these people?

Have they no souls, no common decency?

I can understand - though I strongly disagree with - Republican tics like saying FDR made the Great Depression worse, or Obama is leading us into socialism. Those points are very wrong, but they're not making the mortality of a devoted public servant a sleazy talking point.

Is this where the GOP is heading? America deserves an opposition party that can do better.

The Most Revolutionary Phrase of President Obama's Inaugural

I never thought I'd enjoy a Presidential Inauguration as much as I did JFK's in 1960, when I was a kid and I saw it on a black-and-white television, but Barack Obama's today was every bit as good on the big color screen, and even more revolutionary. The son of an African and an American being sworn in as President.

The single most daring words in Obama's inaugural address, I thought, was his inclusion of "non-believers" in his citing of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and the other faiths of our nation and world. That one phrase shows the profound inclusionary quality of President Obama's vision. It represents a revolution indeed. Non-believers are people, too.

His statements of what America would be doing different from now on, with George W. Bush just a few feet away, were inspiring, too. The speech was strong and straightforward.

The audience - on the stage and in the crowd - was extraordinary. It was good to see Ted Kennedy walking in at the beginning. He made it. Witness to JFK and now Barack Obama taking the oath of office.*

The first day of a new America, and a new world.

*3pm: Breaking news that Ted Kennedy was taken out on a stretcher from the Inaugural luncheon. Let's hope for the best.

Ted Kennedy at the 2008 Democratic Convention: JFK Would Be Smiling

I don't think our country has ever completely gotten over the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I know I haven't. But tonight's address at the Democratic Convention by Ted Kennedy, following Ken Burns' superb film tribute, sure came close to redeeming some of that lost spirit.

Barack Obama and JFK are in many ways not comparable - times have changed drastically since then. Just look at Mad Men.

But the two are indeed the same in the power they have to excite our kids and our better souls. Carolyn Kennedy was right when she made this point in her introduction of Ted, and Ted Kennedy was right when he said the same.

Nothing can ever bring back JFK. But Obama in the White House in January 2009, and Ted Kennedy in the Senate, and Carolyn in some cabinet position, too, would be a great start. JFK would be smiling.

More Infinite Regress Democratic Convention Coverage: Olbermann to Scarborough on MSNBC: "Jesus, Joe, Get A Shovel" ... Michelle Obama's Speech: Bringing Home America

Extraordinary Moments: Ted Kennedy Endorses Barack Obama

I just saw Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama at American University, followed by another powerful speech by Obama.

What an extraordinary pair of speeches. What extraordinary moments in American history.

Ted Kennedy did much more than offer platitudes. He presented specifics, such as the opposition of a previous Democratic President, Harry Truman, to JFK's candidacy in 1960 - and how Truman asked JFK to be "patient" and wait for another year to run for President. Ted Kennedy spoke of the hope that JFK stirred in the American people. A day never passes without my still feeling it. It's not a mirage or an unattainable ideal. It's real and can motivate America to do great things again. It's been waiting a long time. Ted Kennedy sees this power to elicit the best of America - our better angels - in Barack Obama.

And Obama gave one of his great speeches, too. Also composed of important specifics, personal and as well political. Obama noted that his father was able to come to the United States to study because of work by John F. Kennedy as a young Senator.

There is a connection between John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama that many have noticed. It's wit and style and the capacity to inspire. But more than that, it's the willingness to break out of the past, to ignore conventional wisdom, to appeal directly to the people rather than the pundits, and let the people decide.

That, it seems to me, is democracy at its best.