Private Mars Rocket II

We had a good gully-washer of a storm last night, and it apparently blew in some links.

A) an American tradition is anything that happened to a babyboomer twice.

B) Occasionally, I worry that the loud and militant right wing in America will go from yelling to action. Then, I stop worrying when A ten-million-man march comes up 9,999,900 men short.

C) On "free" health care: then clearly if chemotherapy is free, people will get as much as they can. It’s just simple logic once you “think like a freak” and see that the market for health care is just like the market for cars, with similar elasticity of demand and ability to do comparison shopping. (sarcasm alert, for those so impaired)

D) One of the received truths of gun people is that the M-1 carbine lacked stopping power. Well, this guy fired carbine, rifle and pistol rounds at an aluminum plate with some surprising results.

E) Some wise words on diversity in storytelling.

I ran out of steam last night, and blew off my standing trivia competition. I ended up in bed at 9:30, and am blaming a series of late nights and early mornings at the Rotary conference and my writer's workshop. Since the steam is re-building, have some links:

A) A history lesson for Cliven Bundy - the Homestead Acts.

B) Lying Liars who Lie - a response to the historical revisionism of John C. Wright.

C) An interesting take on the book and movie Silence of the Lambs. Well worth the read.

D) I think I said this before, but another voice saying of the film Ender's Game: "You’re making sociopaths. Sociopaths do not make good fighting leaders. Nor do they follow orders well. And all your failed sociopaths are going to have to go somewhere afterwards: you’re going to break them, teach them these habits, and send them back to civvy-street?"

E) I served on one, so they have a place in my heart: Upgrading the classic FFG. (The one I served on is part of this upgrade.)

F) For my Dad, who wonders why they're not making a movie of my book: 268 science fiction books came out in the month of May.

There's so much craziness going on at the moment, I'm not sure where to focus on, so I'm not going to bother with mere "focus."

1) Bundy - rumor has it his militia has tossed up roadblocks. It appears to me that local law enforcement is going to try and wait him out. Presumably the "militia" have, like, day jobs and/or will get bored standing in the hot Nevada sun in the ass-end of nowhere.

2) John C. Wright quit SFWA. When I mentioned that the goings-on in SFWA would, if they occurred in any other professional organization, resulted in the same sort of firings, I got called "gentle reader" and "a damn liar" in the same post.

3) Over at The Usual Suspects, Judicial Watch got hold of a collection of emails from three days after the Benghazi fiasco. In one of the emails, somebody says "blame it on the video" which since, while the email was being written, other video-related riots were occurring seemed at least reasonable at the time. But since it was obvious that Benghazi was an al-qaida op, that email was sufficient proof for impeachment.

4) Speaking of the dude that done made the video, I said:

Well, his parole from his conviction for bank fraud said “don’t use the Internet and don’t use false identities.” So a Federal judge decided that making movies on the Internet and using a false ID violated his parole and yanked same.

See, this is what bothers me about libertarians. They want “rule of law” except when it’s a rich white guy (Cliven Bundy, High Plains Welfare Queen) or somebody who pisses off Moslems. In that case, the hell with the law.

Does anybody wonder where a guy fresh out of jail gets $100,000 to pay actors and rent a studio? Is it even possible that some Al Qaida operative paid him to make a movie which they could use to start riots? Nah – that would never happen! /sarcasm/

My fundraiser came off, we made a bunch of money, and it snowed in Chicago, snarling traffic. I learn via the Internets today that:

1) If I'm not 100% in favor of going to war to defend the independence of Ukraine, then I'm an unpatriotic hater of America. (from james_nicoll). I suspect that eventually, instead of fighting Russia, we'll be allied with them.

2) If I don't think that Bob Heinlein was the Greatest SF Writer Ever and anybody not writing in his mode is Evil Bad and Just No Good, then I'm no true SF fan. For the record, I like Heinlein, but he was a product of his time.

“Mom! They’re Picking On Me!”

In watching the latest brouhaha over SFWA, I have noticed various conservative folks arguing that they are being oppressed / victimized / censored by SFWA. (A nice round-up here, with added hilarity in comments.) Alas, this is nothing new. The American Right has been cultivating a sense of victimhood since at least the Reagan administration. At that time, the leading screamer was one Rush Limbaugh, although I remember the local College Republicans could put out a good whine too. What is amazing is that this whine continued despite conservatives gaining control of the US Government.

Heinlein Is Sexist, Or, Things Change

Via a tangent from the above brouhaha, I was directed to this essay arguing that Heinlein's writing is sexist. My thought is this: for his time, Heinlein was not sexist. For example, one of the complaints of the linked article is that Heinlein's women seemed awful eager to have sex.

But in the 1950s, "good girls" didn't enjoy sex. They closed their eyes and thought of England, or something. (Not that Queen Victoria ever did that). Having said that, things change.

Actually, "things change" is part of what started the original brouhaha. Two older guys said something that, in their youth, would not have been seen as problematic. Now it is.

SFWA Wrap-up

I've discussed on several occasions the petition to not saddle the SFWA Bulletin with an advisory board. As it turns out, the petitioners (to quote SFWA President Gould) "express concerns for something that does not and will not exist:" - an advisory board. I think "sound and fury signifying nothing" is the best summary of this event. Although, it did lead to a very humorous response from one quarter.

Gravity

Jay Lake riffed on my post about rational thinking. One last thought: facts are like gravity: they get everybody in the end. Call it a Gerrib's Law.

Link Salad

1) Here's an interesting Kickstarter and vaguely linked to the SFWA petition - women destroy science fiction.

2) Here's the first recorded instance of the F-word in English.

3) An open letter from a Death Star architect.

SFWA member David Truesdale is circulating a petition against the appointment of an advisory board for the SFWA Bulletin. Theodore Beale, Professional Crank At Large, has taken up the cause with his usual tact and courtesy. My questions to Beale are posted below:

So every time the board of a newspaper overrides the editor of that newspaper it's a violation of the First Amendment? Every editor of every publication should have sole discretion as to what they publish?

Isn't, in this case, the Board the duly-appointed representatives of the membership that owns the publication? What recourse, if any, do the members have if their publication prints something they collectively disagree with?

What if the editor of a publication decides not to include something in their publication they have violated the author's First Amendment rights? There's no particular reason to expect say, Jerry Pournelle getting the gig.

More to the point, since when does the First Amendment apply to private organizations? SFWA is not Congress nor otherwise affiliated with government.

Like the label on the tin says:

A) From Charlie Stross, interesting thoughts on spies and spying. Lots of good stuff there, but one takeaway I'd like to highlight is that loyalty is a two-way street. Snowden and Bradley Manning (both under 30 years old) are from a generation where loyalty to an employer is as alien as the divine right of kings. This is largely because employers haven't shown much loyalty to their employees (Snowden, in particular, was a contractor).

B) N. K. Jemisin stirred up a pot of controversy by calling a racist a racist. Now she thinks people need to pick a side in these matters. Presented without comment.

C) From Obsidian Wings, a metaphor for Asia - my three sons.

D) From Toby Buckell, quantity leads to quality.

E) A human-interest story: Last person to get smallpox dies of malaria while working to eradicate polio. I remind the curious that eradicating polio is the major project of Rotary.

Just, spitballing here (said in my best Jack Nicholson voice) but saying "don't call me a racist" in the same post as you say "it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not" is perhaps, a less-than-optimal argument strategy.

(Context here. Be warned - not for the weak of stomach, and you may need to take a shower after reading.)

I live in a townhouse, and the association which runs the place has an annual election of board members. Usually, these are Soviet-style affairs - one candidate per open seat. This isn't a conspiracy, rather, it's a reflection of the fact that finding people to fill the slots is hard. Being on the board of a homeowners association is a lot of work for no pay, little thanks and a lot of grief from people.

A few years ago, we had a contested election. At the time, I was confused as to why. Our association had solid finances, was keeping up on maintenance, and things were generally running smoothly. There seemed no reason to change leadership. Then I heard the opposing candidate's "platforms." One guy seemed to want the board to "work with" people who couldn't pay assessments. Another guy wanted separate swimming hours at the pool for boys and girls. The third guy (I think) wanted the association to ban pit bulls. (They already had a rule about aggressive dogs, so I didn't see the point.)

At any rate, after much hoopla, the insurgent platform lost the election. Badly. I mean like, they got 20% of the vote. After the results were announced at the annual meeting, the insurgents held a rump meeting and announced that they would be "keeping their eyes on the board." This idea may have survived until they got to the parking lot, but it didn't live to the next board meeting - I was one of only three non-board-members in attendance. (I was looking for some cheap entertainment which didn't happen.)

I am reminded of this story when I see that Theodore Beale AKA Vox Day is running for SFWA president. Again, SFWA seems to be in good shape, financially and otherwise, and there appears no reason to change leadership, other than Scalzi wants to quit. The one legitimate issue on Beale's platform, self-published authors, is on everybody else's too. So why is Beale running?

I suspect the people who ran for the board of my townhouse didn't really want to run the association. This is why they were nowhere to be found after their loss. No, they were cranks, seeking to impose their crankitude on whomever they could. Ditto, I suspect, Beale. He seems to be making a career at being a crank on the Internet. But that career requires getting people to pay attention to him first. So, stunts like running for President of SFWA. He's by no means the only such crank - see jimhines latest frolic with The Write Agenda for another exhibit.

Alas, the world is full of cranks, and not all of them content themselves with sitting at the corner of the bar.