(1) STRACZYNSKI MEMOIR COMING. Harper Voyager US has acquired the imprint’s first memoir, written by J. Michael Straczynski. The book will be published in 2019.
Straczynski is one of the most successful writers of comics, TV, graphic novels, and movies in modern pop culture, and has emerged as one of the most respected voices in science fiction today, selling millions of comics, winning dozens of awards and working with such luminaries as Clint Eastwood, Angelina Jolie and Kenneth Branagh. He is famed for his work on the recent Netflix hit Sense8, his work on Babylon 5, Changeling, World War Z, Thor, and a seven-year stint on The Amazing Spider-Man. But despite forty years of twelve-hour writing days, there’s one story Straczynski could never tell: his own. This memoir chronicles the author’s struggle growing up surrounded by poverty, violence, alcoholism and domestic abuse. The result is an inspiring account of how he wrote his way out of some of the most harrowing conditions.
(2) COINCIDENTAL PROPHET. Henry Farrell takes the measure of the author and this age in “Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans” at Boston Review.
Standard utopias and standard dystopias are each perfect after their own particular fashion. We live somewhere queasier—a world in which technology is developing in ways that make it increasingly hard to distinguish human beings from artificial things. The world that the Internet and social media have created is less a system than an ecology, a proliferation of unexpected niches, and entities created and adapted to exploit them in deceptive ways. Vast commercial architectures are being colonized by quasi-autonomous parasites. Scammers have built algorithms to write fake books from scratch to sell on Amazon, compiling and modifying text from other books and online sources such as Wikipedia, to fool buyers or to take advantage of loopholes in Amazon’s compensation structure. Much of the world’s financial system is made out of bots—automated systems designed to continually probe markets for fleeting arbitrage opportunities. Less sophisticated programs plague online commerce systems such as eBay and Amazon, occasionally with extraordinary consequences, as when two warring bots bid the price of a biology book up to $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping).
In other words, we live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s. Dick was no better a prophet of technology than any science fiction writer, and was arguably worse than most. His imagined worlds jam together odd bits of fifties’ and sixties’ California with rocket ships, drugs, and social speculation. Dick usually wrote in a hurry and for money, and sometimes under the influence of drugs or a recent and urgent personal religious revelation.
Still, what he captured with genius was the ontological unease of a world in which the human and the abhuman, the real and the fake, blur together.
(3) BLACK LIGHTNING. The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Flenberg praised the new series: “‘Black Lightning’: TV Review”.
It could be argued that what The CW needs least is another superhero show, much less another murky superhero show.
The pleasant surprise, then, is that Black Lightning, based on yet another DC Comics property, is smart and relevant and full of an attitude that’s all its own. It takes its characters and their world seriously, but thus far doesn’t take itself too seriously. And, best of all, it’s ostensibly entirely separate from Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Arrow and Supergirl, so the risk of time-consuming crossovers or key plot points delivered on a different show is currently nil.
(4) NINE IS TEN. This month io9 is celebrating its 10th anniversary, too. io9 and the File 770 blog started the same month and it’s easy to see which got the most mileage out of that decade. Congratulations io9! Here’s a video made by the founding alumni —
For our 10 year anniversary, we sit down with the co-founders of io9, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, to see how the site all got started. pic.twitter.com/TVk86DGAlP
— io9 (@io9) January 15, 2018
(5) STARVING IN THE CITY OF THE FUTURE. Slate has published Charlie Jane Anders’ story of future hunger: “The Minnesota Diet”. The future isn’t that far away.
This short story was commissioned and edited jointly by Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. Each month in 2018, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and CSI about how technology and science will change our lives—will publish a story on a new theme. The theme for January–March 2018: Home.
North American Transit Route No. 7 carves a path between tree silhouettes like wraiths, through blanched fields that yawn with the furrows of long-ago crops. Weaving in and out of the ancient routes of Interstates 29 and 35, this new highway has no need for rest stops or attempts to beautify the roadside, because none of the vehicles have a driver or any passengers. The trucks race from north to south, at speeds that would cause any human driver to fly off the road at the first curve. The sun goes down and they keep racing, with only a few thin beams to watch for obstacles. They don’t need to see the road to stay on the road. The trucks seem to hum to one another, tiny variations in their engine sounds making a kind of atonal music. Seen from above, they might look like the herds of mustangs that used to run across this same land, long ago….
(6) POLL. Uncanny Magazine has opened voting for readers to pick their three favorite original short stories from the works they published last year — “Uncanny Celebrates Reader Favorites of 2017”.
We’ve set up a poll for Uncanny readers to vote for their top three favorite original short stories from 2017. (You can find links to all of the stories here.)
The poll will be open from January 17 to February 7, after which we’ll announce the results. We’re excited for you to share which Uncanny stories made you feel!
A snazzy certificate will be given to the creator whose work comes out on top of the poll!
So please spread the word! And don’t forget, EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
(7) GENRE DESTRUCTION. Also, Uncanny is taking submissions to a special issue through February 15 — “Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Guidelines”
We welcome submission from writers who identify themselves as disabled. Identity is what matters for this issue. What kinds of disabilities? All of them. Invisible and visible. Physical disabilities, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, mental health disabilities, and neurodiversity.
Yes, even if your disability is a recently acquired one.
Yes, even if your disability is static, or if it isn’t.
Yes, even if you’ve had your disability since birth.
Yes, even if you use adaptive devices only SOME of the time.
Yes, you.
Reading Elsa’s essay “Disabled Enough” from our Kickstarter may help if you have any doubts.
So, if you identify as disabled across any of these definitions or others, we want to hear from you!
(8) LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE WORDSMITH. L. Ron Hubbard couldn’t do it. andrew j. offutt couldn’t do it. So it’s up to Matthew Plunkett to tell you “How to Write 100,000 Words Per Day, Every Day” (from McSweeney’s.)
Relationships
My first blog post appeared online in 2008 when I explained how I attained my top ranking on a popular worldwide online game. Since then, I haven’t stopped writing. If you’re wondering whether this level of output will hinder your relationships with friends and lovers, let me set you straight. Life is about decisions. Either you write 100,000 words a day or you meet people and develop ties of affection. You can’t do both.
(9) GENTLER PACE. Concatenation has posted its “Newscast for the Spring 2018” – an aggregation of sff and pop cuture news issued at a not-quite-quarterly rate.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 17, 1982 – The Ray Bradbury-penned The Electric Grandmother premiered on television.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY DARTH
- Born January 17, 1931 – James Earl Jones
(12) BIAS AT WORK. Sarah Hollowell, who calls her blog “Sarah Hollowell, Fat Writer Girl and Her Fat Words”, was not added to the Midwest Writers Workshop’s organizational committee after her appearance was made an issue.
A week ago The Guardian covered the initial stages of the story in “Roxane Gay calls out writing group for ‘fatphobic’ treatment of Sarah Hollowell”.
An American writers’ workshop that has counted Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Deaver and Clive Cussler among its faculty has been called out by Roxane Gay for “fatphobia”, after a writer’s appearance was criticised during a vote to give her a public-facing role.
Gay, who has herself been on the faculty for the Midwest Writers Workshop (MWW), turned to Twitter on Tuesday to lay out how the workshop’s organisers treated the writer Sarah Hollowell. According to Gay, Hollowell has worked for MWW for five years, and was voted to be on its organisational committee. But when her appointment was being discussed, “someone said ‘do we really want someone like her representing us?’ That person elaborated ‘someone so fat. It’s disgusting’,” claimed Gay.
Gay, the author of essay collection Bad Feminist and the memoir Hunger, said that only two people in the room defended Hollowell, and that the author was not then brought on to the committee. “This is unacceptable. And cruel. And cowardly, Midwest Writers Workshop. And you thought you could get away with it. You very nearly did,” wrote Gay, calling on the workshop to issue a “public and genuine” apology to Hollowell, and forbidding it to use her name as a past faculty member in its promotional materials again. “I’m too fat and disgusting to be associated with you,” she wrote.
Hollowell herself said that “there are a lot of good people” at the MWW, but that “I have been hurt in a very real way and I don’t think it should be hidden”.
The workshop subsequently issued an apology to Hollowell on Wednesday, in which its director Jama Kehoe Bigger said: “We screwed up.”
The apology and offers to attempt to “make it right” have not panned out. Instead, here’s what’s happening —
Well, folks. I’ve been fired from the Midwest Writers Board of Directors for a “betrayal of trust” for telling @sarahhollowell that she’d been referred to as “fat” “huge” and “disgusting” and denied her earned and unanimously voted slot on said Board of Directors.
???????????????????? pic.twitter.com/B2V0JBaWAM
— Summer Heacock (@Fizzygrrl) January 17, 2018
They did. The people who revoked Sarah’s position on the board after the comment did NOT.
— Summer Heacock (@Fizzygrrl) January 18, 2018
Hollowell responded with a full thread, which includes these tweets —
I don't think MWW understands what they've lost and what they've thrown away and that makes me sad.
Summer gave them everything and all she did wrong was tell the truth, and now she's fired, because they don't care about making real change. They care about fixing the image.
— Sarah Hollowell ???? (@sarahhollowell) January 17, 2018
like you keep doing you, believe Summer's a liar because it's easier for you than thinking mmmmAAAYBE MWW has some issues that needs fixing and then maybe you have to believe YOU have issues that need fixing
but don't think you're clever or super smart or special
— Sarah Hollowell ???? (@sarahhollowell) January 17, 2018
(13) NOW YOU SEE IT. Nothing magical about this disappearing act — “Rare first edition Harry Potter worth £40,000 stolen”.
A hardback first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone worth about £40,000 was one of a number of rare books stolen during a burglary.
The book, J.K Rowling’s maiden novel of the globally successful series, was stolen from SN Books in Thetford, Norfolk, between 8 and 9 January….
The Harry Potter book was made even more “unique” by being in a custom red box, the force added.
(14) TRAIN TRICKS. The BBC reports a “Japanese train barks like a dog to prevent accidents” — it scares away deer who lick the tracks to get iron.
Tokyo’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports that the combination of sounds is designed to scare deer away from the tracks in a bid to reduce the number of animal deaths on the railway.
Officials from the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) say that a three-second blast of the sound of a deer snorting attracts the animals’ attention, and 20 seconds of dog barking is enough to make them take flight.
(15) EVEN IF YOU DO EVERYTHING RIGHT. An interesting thread by Alex Acks who argues that maybe it’s not a conspiracy….
https://twitter.com/katsudonburi/status/953724082024939520
(16) WHAT DOESN’T PAY. And Shaun Duke has his own argument against the conspiracy theory.
https://twitter.com/shaunduke/status/953412558895157248
(17) FILL ‘ER UP. This sounds like the beginning of a nice 1950s sf story — “UK firm contracts to service satellites”.
Effective Space says its two servicing “Space Drones” will be built using manufacturing expertise in the UK and from across the rest of Europe.
The pair, which will each be sized about the same as a washing machine and weigh less than 400kg, are expected to launch on the same rocket sometime in 2020.
Once in orbit, they will separate and attach themselves to the two different geostationary telecommunications satellites that are almost out of fuel.
(18) HIRSUTE. Chip Hitchcock says, “As the proud possessor of a handle bar mustache, I’m pleased to see ’Moustached monkey is separate species’.”
A monkey from Ethiopia and Sudan with a “handlebar moustache” has been identified as a distinct species.
Scientists took a fresh look at the distribution and physical appearance of patas monkeys in Ethiopia, confirming there were two species rather than one.
It was originally described as a separate species in 1862, but was later folded in – incorrectly – with other patas monkeys to form a single species.
(19) WHEN THE BOOKS WERE WRITTEN. Brenton Dickieson has published an epic tool for scholars – “My Cheat Sheet of C.S. Lewis’ Writing Schedule” — at A Pilgrim in Narnia.
For those who study authors of the past, you will soon discover that the publication lists and bibliography of an author are not always terribly helpful. After all, writing, editing, and publishing a book are stages that can each take years. Knowing something is published in 1822 or 1946 tells us little about the writing process. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien each had books that took nearly two decades to write….
Over the last five years, then, I have developed a habit of speaking about when C.S. Lewis or one of the Inklings wrote a book, rather than when they published it. I haven’t been perfectly consistent with this on the blog, but have generally put the writing period in brackets rather than the publication date.
To do this, I discovered that I was slowly building myself a cheat sheet to help me remember when Lewis was writing a book so that I can connect it with what was going on at the time. The cheat sheet includes completed books and incomplete fragments of what would have been a book. I’ve decided to share this cheat sheet with those of you who are interested. This might save you time or inspire you to make connections between Lewis’ work and his life patterns. And, perversely, I’m hoping to draw more people into the project of reading Lewis chronologically, and have provided resources here, here, and here.
(20) HYPERBOREAN AGE. Black Gate’s Doug Ellis says it’s “Time to Revise Your Lin Carter Biography”, though “bibliography” may be the intended word. Either way — Ellis tells about a 1967 fanzine, The Brythunian Prints, published by some Toledo fans.
The most interesting content is two pages of poetry by Lin Carter, under the general heading “War Songs and Battle Cries,” apparently reprinted with Carter’s permission from The Wizard of Lemuria and Thongor of Lemuria. The remaining content is taken up with editorials, limericks by John Boardman (four of which were reprinted from Amra) and a book review of The Fantastic Swordsmen edited by de Camp. The back cover is Tolkien related, as it pictures “Baggins and Trinket” (the Ring).
(21) MORE PAST FUTURES. Let MovieWeb tell you “10 Back to the Future Facts You Never Knew”.
THE POTENTIAL DOC BROWNS
Christopher Lloyd, part of the ensemble of the TV series Taxi which ran from 1978 till 1983, seems irreplaceable as Doctor Emmett Brown in the minds and hearts of fans around the world. But before he landed the role, some other big names were considered for the part, including John Lithgow, Dudley Moore, and Jeff Goldblum. Imagine those memes!
[Thanks to Mark Hepworth, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Will R., Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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FIRST!
I really wish someone would put “Babylon 5” back on TV.
Also, if you can type 90 WPM, 100,000 words per day is doable. It only takes 18.5 hours a day.
In the UK, Pick TV has been running Babylon 5 at 8pm weekdays. Last night was Lyta Alexanders visit to unmask the mole.
(3) BLACK LIGHTNING
Looks like this is coming to UK Netflix next week so I’ll be giving it a whirl.
(15) EVEN IF YOU DO EVERYTHING RIGHT
The wisest thing Acks says in that thread is that the people who need to hear it most, won’t.
I think the thing about conspiracy theories, no matter of what stripe or who believes them (so I am going inductive here) is that they are *comforting*. It’s comforting to know that, except for mysterious force x, you would succeed, you would do well, its not luck or blind chance or your own failings, you are in fact behind the x ball because of a shadowy force. Getting people to resist that thinking in themselves,once its taken hold, is hard.
It’s the same thing that is behind blame the victim. And superstitions. She must have been wearing the wrong clothes, or he must have failed to throw the salt over his shoulder after spilling it, because if bad things happened randomly, then I have no control, and they could happen to me.
A good conspiracy theory, appropriately selected, is definitely a comfort.
Fifth? [edited: seventh!] I suspect humans are predisposed to conspiracy theories, just as we’re disposed to inferring patterns, even when no actual pattern exists.
When I was amusing myself, many years ago, keeping track of (a few) conspiracy theories, the unwarranted spotting-of-patterns was a very strong trend.
@ Lenore / Lis: With the previous mention of Babylon 5, one of my most favourite quotes ever is (said by Marcus, in A late delivery from Avalon:
In further B5 handy-things, the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 is still up. I did a re-watch last year (i think?).
@Ingvar, yeah, MIke Underwood, Shaun and I have been liberally using that for our (hopefully to be resumed ) watch/rewatch of B5 series for the podcast.
Cheers for “GENTLER PACE. Concatenation has posted its “Newscast for the Spring 2018” – an aggregation of sff and pop cuture news issued at a not-quite-quarterly rate.”
Just to explain, the Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation follows the academic or school year. So it’s three principal editions Spring, Summer and Autumn with a best of Nature ‘Futures’ one-page PDF SF short story in between and an extra one before Christmas.
Thanks for the puff though,. Apreciated.
Scroll twice, file once.
“A scrolling pixel grows no file”
(20) It probably wouldn’t hold up, but I had great fun with “Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria” when I was a kid.
“Where every Pixel pleases, and only Scrolls are Filed”
“All around the scrolltower, the pixels kept the view….”
The primary problem with attempting to diffuse conspiracies is the existence of behavior that reinforces the original conspiracy theory.
For example, an organizer for a comicon on the east coast recently took to Facebook to crow about his decision to not select Kevin Sorbo to appear at the con. The organizer cited Sorbo’s friendship with Sean Hannity as the justification for his decision.
Shortly thereafter the organizer either deleted that statement from Facebook or changed it to “private” rather than “public”.
[The event has been misreported as the organizer banning Sorbo. Sorbo indicated that he had never heard of the con. I’m guessing that an agent provided a list of potential celebrities and Sorbo was one of many on this list.]
As long as people with a modest amount of power display behavior that suggests that they axiomatically believe that “conservative=asshole”, conspiracy theories will survive.
The response to Margaret Atwood’s defense of “due process” being another, recent example.
Regards,
Dann
I’m not sure what I think yet about Black Lightning. It seemed like Jefferson’s turning back to his superhero persona happened awfully fast. Sure, his daughters were in danger, but still… It felt like too many characters were introduced and the pace was too fast for them to make much sense. I hope they slow things down and take a breath in later episodes.
Now Marvel’s Runaways, I really liked. I’m looking forward to season 2.
“…Where all the pixels are strong, all the files are good looking, and all the scrolls are above average.”
I confess, I will never understand why a writer would think that their personality shouldn’t be a consideration when deciding whether to accept their work. They’re being hired as an employee–yes, independent contractor and all that, but the fact of the matter is that an editor will have to work with them on a regular basis, and barring a few spectacular outliers, it’s just as easy to find someone to publish who isn’t going to make your life miserable.
“Be nice to people” isn’t something you should follow only because it’s good business sense. But it is good business sense.
…when files were real files, scrolls were real scrolls, and small fuzzy pixels from Alpha Centauri were real small fuzzy pixels from Alpha Centauri…
It’s certainly true that once you convince yourself “I won’t be allowed to succeed because X” it is almost impossible to put in more than a half-hearted effort.
“To destroy a man, you need only convince him his work is in vain.” (Not sure where I heard that.)
@Dann: Except that the existence of a conspiracy requires more than simply evidence that quite a lot of people think that conservative celebrities are assholes and don’t want them around. It requires evidence of a coordinated effort to deny them access to the fan community solely for their politics and not their behavior.
A complicating factor in this is that so many conservative celebrities are actually assholes, independent of their political affiliation, and are quite rightly being recognized as such. No conspiratorial entity is needed to explain why Brad Torgersen is not particularly well-loved, when a five-minute conversation with him on any topic you’d care to name will readily establish a motivation that will satisfy Occam’s Razor.
…where the pixels are many, the scrolls are few, and the files are nervous.
@Dann–
“Crow about,” or “talk about?
And however much you like Hannity, he has a track record, and it’s not one of being either civil or reasonable with those whose political views he disagrees with. Nor is it just an unfair focus on Sorbo’s friends. Sorbo himself, as others have pointed out, has a track record of being a whiny, demanding jerk who is hard to work with.
So Sorbo is an unpleasant person who is publicly friendly with an on-air personality who is routinely verbally abusive to people who dare to express opinions he disagrees with.
Call me crazy, but I’m not sure why you would expect people to be eager to set themselves up to have to work with Sorbo.
“It’s Pixels All the Way Down!”
Oh-ho the Scroll Pixel wagon is a comin’ down the street, oh please let it be for me
Babylon Fifth! (And its replacement, Babylon Second Fifth!)
(14) A few years back they were suggesting electric cars and/or electric motorcycles might be too quiet and people might be hit because they wouldn’t hear them coming. (Yes, look both ways before you cross, but some people don’t or may be visually impaired or the whole phone zombie phenomenon.) So they suggested that they might have some sort of artificial engine noise.
This suggested to me an entire market for customizable car noises. They’ll know you’re coming when they hear the sound of the TARDIS or TIE Fighters or Theme from Peter Gunn. (“Yikes! It’s the car from Spy Hunter. Run!”)
@OGH (particularly re @17): I wonder if there’s some alternate universe — maybe the one in which Ted White never heard about Magicon — in which you write for an ad agency rather than working for the IRS? I sometimes come up with pithy lead-ins to the links I send, but you do it consistently….
@Lenore Jones: re “she must have been wearing the wrong clothes”, have you seen reports of an exhibit whose object is to dispel that idea?
@Ingvar: conspiracy theories are definitely an example of pattern finding. That just makes them explainable, not plausible; a long-ago friend used to say “Do not attribute to malice what can be explained by [simple?] incompetence”. (I’m sure this wasn’t original, but it was especially amusing because their SCA-derived nickname was “Malice”.)
Years ago, I ran across the idea that conspiracy theories are appealing because they share a message: someone is in charge. Even if the “someone” are the forces of evil, if evil has hold of the levers that means that levers exist.
(20) I note with some amusement that Black Gate article does now say “Bibliography” in the title.
@Jack Lint: I read (and heard directly) that the lack of noise was especially worrying for blind people, and that Toyota (at least) was actively doing something about this (but not going so far as retrofits — at least, I haven’t been offered one for my 2010 Prius). Custom noises sound cute, but ISTM that they might not be helpful; a noise that says “car coming” isn’t the same as one that might be mistaken for an obnoxious ring tone.
@Jack Lint (2): or if you want to be more obscure:
@VIcki Rosenzweig: oh yes — accepting that the universe is random is a hard lesson; cf Waiting for the Galactic Bus.
There must be scroll kinda way out of here, said the writer to the thief…
Conspiracies are remarkably reassuring to the ego. “I’m so powerful that They have it out for me! They know I must be stopped!” Hardly anybody likes to think that no one knows who they are and will forget them as soon as they walk away (barring late night runs to the drugstore in lounge pants, in which case I hope like hell I am forgotten as soon as I walk away.)
@Lis Carey
“I turned down Kevin Sorbo for East Coast Comicon. He’s pals with Sean Hannity. I just can’t do it.”
http://boundingintocomics.com/2018/01/13/trump-supporter-kevin-sorbo-denied-spot-east-coast-comicon/
Seems more like crowing to me. A big fish in a small pond finally getting to use their authority for something that strokes their ego.
Also seems to be focused on Sorbo’s politics rather than his reputation. Is he difficult at cons when he appears? If so, then that would be one reason to go with another celebrity that is easier to get along with. At least it would be a reason that is relevant for a con organizer to consider when choosing who to invite to appear.
@John Seavey
I disagree. The MSM in the US leans overwhelmingly to the left. It isn’t because there is a sekrit club with decoder rings coordinating admissions to j-schools.
On a separate note, it might be hard to believe, but Charlie Jane Anders might be a closet conservative. At least, between The Minnesota Diet and All The Birds In The Sky, I see some sympathies for certain conservative perspectives in their writing.
Regards,
Dann
@ Dann:
This is a common conservative bugaboo and I believe this is a misperception. They think because the media isn’t on the right, it is obviously on the left. Not true. The press is trying to be in the center, which means that both the right and the left tend to think it’s biased. The right has taken advantage of the media’s desire to be objective by pummeling them with the “leftist bias” myth and silencing the press on crucial issues of concern to all.
To me the phrasing “I just can’t do it” without further elaboration sounds more like an weary sigh than a crow of triumph.
You also linked to a source that is the opposite of unbiased in what and how much it reports. There are any number of details they could have conveniently failed to include that elaborated on a two sentence facebook post, including the comment threads before they were removed (If you can screenshot the one, you can screenshot the other… unless it doesn’t tell the story you want to tell.) They could have asked for an interview comment from the guy who made the decision, or other members of the concom, and not solely from some random right wing dude cancelling his visit to the convention, they could have done any amount of research that was blatantly absent from their short article.
@Dann–
Clearly Bounding Into Comics is framing it that way. Quite clearly.
Yet they give us just ten words, starting in mid-sentence, at least as they quote it. You’ve added in another whole sentence and changed the punctuation from what you link to as your source.
And I don’t know the source of your addition.
The only thing that identifies politics rather than the known unpleasantness of Sorbo and his association with another rude, unpleasant jerk.
Why do you think I would be more interested in the possibility that Anders might lean more conservative than I do, than by the fact that I enjoyed reading All the Birds in the Sky? Seems like you might be projecting.
And after the edit window closed, I realized I should have quoted the paragraph Dann got his quote from:
http://boundingintocomics.com/2018/01/13/trump-supporter-kevin-sorbo-denied-spot-east-coast-comicon/
@Chip Hitchcock
That’s usually referred to as Hanlon’s Razor
Though I quite the Bernard Ingam quote: “Think cock-up, before conspiracy”
@ Chip There’s also the question of how quickly you’d get really sick of a customized noise. (Not to mention how sick you’d be of everyone else’s sounds.) A similar example is how everyone used to customize the noises the Macs made. After a few weeks, you’re looking for the simplest, least annoying noise available for most of the system sounds.
“Yeah, I was in the scroll. I was in the scroll for 21 days once – the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your pixel in the scroll, somebody else carries your books. It was great. Your SJW credentials sleep on first editions, the libraries are like cathedrals, the hotels all have fast wifi, and the women all have long reading lists and brains.”
@Rob Thornton
Who should I believe? You or my lying eyes/ears?
UCLA political-science professor Tim Groseclose has spent years evaluating news reporting and journalist voting patterns. He makes a pretty solid case for asserting that the US media, on average, is left of the average American voter.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/272131/measuring-media-bias-nat-brown
Take a look at opensecrets.org. There were roughly 3500 donations that listed “journalist” as their profession that also donated to a campaign or a PAC during the 2016 cycle. I went through the first 350 donations and found fewer than ten that went to the GOP candidates or GOP related PACs. There were another dozen or so donations to PACs that were not instantly identifiable as either D or R oriented. All of the other donations were do Democrat candidates or PACs.
Change the search term from “journalist” to “media” and you find a few more donations to GOP candidates/PACS. But you also pick up many more donations going to Bernie Sanders as well as PACs that are further left.
IMHO, that difference shows up in what stories get reported and the perspective that gets reported.
@Lenora Rose
I’m sure there is some bias going on in the reporting. I tried to find the least unbalanced report of the event. I hope you will note that my description of the event is far less breathless than was used in that link.
Given the world we live in, I’m sure that the VD/JdA brigade of the 98th Chair Force has been inundating the inbox of that con organizer. He probably just wants the whole mess to go away.
@Lis Carey
I added nothing to the quote. The quote I provided is the one that I have seen on every other site that has reported on this issue. Everyone is using the same basic screenshot. The big red box with the text. That is where the quote came from. The first paragraph includes a truncated version.
The comment about Charlie Anders was not added specifically for your benefit. It was just a random thought that I had while reading her story. If it hadn’t been linked in the scroll, I wouldn’t have made the comment. I apologize for causing any confusion.
Regards,
Dann
Now you have me wondering how the “I believe in…” speech would read in translation to Scrollese.
IanP: You mean I made up my own headcanon to explain the origin of Hanlon’s Razor? I thought it was named after Tom Hanlon, who worked on the 1988 New Orleans Worldcon. Doubtless the person who used that expression knew it was named after a different Hanlon, and since Heinlein used a similar line in “Logic of Empire,” it would have been an idea already embedded in fannish culture anyway.
Speaking of Charlie Jane Anders, did anyone see her contribution to the twitter discussion of the political nature of science fiction?
https://twitter.com/charliejane/status/953693471214153728
Followed by the lesson learned about making jokes about Heinlein.
https://twitter.com/charliejane/status/954059050777436160
UCLA political-science professor Tim Groseclose has spent years evaluating news reporting and journalist voting patterns.
Groseclose is an economics professor, currently at George Mason University, who works for the Mercatus Center, a think tank funded by the Koch brothers. I’m not really convinced of his objectivity.
Lis: As Dann says, there’s a screenshot. His version is accurate. His interpretation of the tone of it is well beyond dubious, though.
@Jack Lint: Oh, lord! I wish I’d written this one: “Heinlein believed passionately in never paying for his own lunch…” And that she’d done Friday up good. And then, there’s this gem in the follow-ups, from Lilyn G – Sci-Fi & Scary @ScifiandScary: “Learned that in, uhm, Hein-sight, did you?”
Lenora Rose
Yeah I took it more as a lamenting tone personally. However it was meant in a joking way according to the guy who said it, from https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/01/16/east-coast-comicon-kevin-sorbo-snub/
So he put it on his Facebook in a joking context to people he thought might find the idea funny. There was no invite rescinded, or booking made or any contact between him and Sorbo, who has himself responded in a way that didn’t seem like he was interested and acted like it was beneath him anyhow. Seems like a petty reason to pass on a person, though at the stage when they’re trying to figure out who to even try to invest the time and resources to get I’m sure there’s plenty of small reasons that come up.
It is kind of interesting how it went from ‘Nah, pass’ to ‘Facebook might think this is funny’ to ‘Breaking News: Christian Actor Kevin Sorbo BANNED from Con for knowing Sean Hannity’.
Petty reason to pass but con-runners can pass on who they want to work on as getting as guests, and yet dumb facebook comment somehow becomes news.
I like it so much I think I’ll put it in yesterday Scroll! 😉
The truth is that US media is totally in line with power. Everyone appearing are there as political pundits for the two political parties. Everyone. US doesn’t let experts talk in the media. There are no scientists explaining phenomena, neither in the natural or in the political science. There’s no one sitting there and calmly explaining statistics. And there are absolutely no one their who is not part of the power structure, either politically or economically. No workers. No man on the street. No one affected by the decisions.
They are just gone.
In that way, US media is 100% elitist. People with cash and power dishing it out against each other. About who among the elite should have more power and cash. It is not about centrism, it is about cozying up.
US media is totally scary for an European, and it is not because of its left-wing bias.
@Mike
It’s also very popular in IT and hacker circles, I think I first came across it in the Jargon File