Wednesday, February 29, 2012  Deep Space Nine's wartime morality
plays show that good writing is timeless  Pretty much since its
inception back in the mid-sixties, Star Trek has often told
stories within its far-future setting that are an allegory on
events in our own time.  It was Gene Roddenberry's way of
telling provocative (and in the context of the time, perhaps
subversive) stories under the guise of being simple science-
fiction.  In one of the more infamous examples, he tackled the
idiocy of racism by showing a race of people with two classes. 
Both classes had faces that were white on one profile and black
on the other, though those whose right profiles were black
despised those who were their mirror images.  Likewise, those
whose faces were white on the right side were equally devoted to
destroying their alternate cousins.  It's a conflict that comes
at a terrible cost.  Of course to the viewer, this war would
have seemed stupid.  "Both these aliens have half-black and
half-white faces, why would they