Pixel Scroll 1/26/17 What Is The Pixel Capacity Of A European Scroll? Laden or Unladen? Aaargh!

(1) END OF PERIOD. As John Hertz said in his report on the dedication of Forrest J Ackerman Square, the city promised to replace the original sign with the erroneous period after the initial “J” – erroneous, because Forry spelled his name without one. And as you can see in this photo by Robert Kerr, the city has installed the corrected sign above the intersection.

Ackerman Square corrected sign

(2) BIG ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. Greg Ketter’s Minneapolis bookstore is featured in “Wi12: Busman’s Holiday Possibilities” at Shelf Awareness.

DreamHaven Books & Comics

Since opening on April 1, 1977, DreamHaven Books & Comics has moved 10 times and even had multiple locations open at once. Today it’s located in an approximately 3,300-square-foot storefront at 2301 East 38th street, the store’s home for the last eight and a half years, in a neighborhood around five miles southeast of downtown Minneapolis. According to owner Greg Ketter, despite various changes over the years, DreamHaven’s specialization in science fiction, fantasy, horror and comic books has remained constant. The book inventory is a mix of used and new, with a higher proportion of used, rare and collectible books than in years past; Ketter also carries a great deal of movie and comic memorabilia. One of the store’s centerpieces is a towering model of Robby the Robot from the film Forbidden Planet. Throughout the store other models and statues abound.

DreamHaven is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a party on April 1. Ketter has author appearances and a sale planned for the day, and is working in concert with Once Upon a Crime, a mystery bookstore in Minneapolis celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

(3) BROUGHT TEARS TO MY EYES. Randy Byers, co-editor of Chunga, has promising news about the progress of his cancer treatment.

Again, the discussion is too technical for me to follow, but it all sounds pretty hopeful, which I assume is why Dr. Taylor was willing to be so optimistic right to my face. I feel torn between wild optimism on my own part and cautious skepticism. No doubt I’ll need to read and discuss it further, but damn if I didn’t immediately start thinking, “Maybe I *will* get to see Celine grow up!”

(4) INCONSTANT MOON.little birdie told us that Larry Niven’s award-winning story may be filmed — “’Arrival’ Producer Developing ‘Inconstant Moon’ Sci-Fi Movie for Fox”.

Fox 2000 is launching development on a movie based on Larry Niven’s science-fiction story “Inconstant Moon” with Oscar-nominated “Arrival” producer Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps company on board.

“The Specatcular Now” director James Ponsoldt is attached from a script by Daniel Casey. Levy and 21 Laps’ Dan Cohen will produce along with Ponsoldt through his 1978 Pictures company and Vince Gerardis through his Created By company.

“Inconstant Moon,” which first appeared in the 1971 short story collection “All the Myriad Ways,” begins with the moon glowing much brighter than ever before, leading the narrator to presume that the sun has gone nova and that this is the last night of his life. He spends the night with his girlfriend but then discovers that the reality is that the Earth has been hit by massive solar flare that kills most the inhabitants of the Eastern Hemisphere.

Levy received an Oscar nomination Tuesday for producing “Arrival” along with Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde. “Arrival” was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Denis Villeneuve.

(5) A REALLY BAD MAN. Atlas Obscura reminds us about a forgotten fictional character who had a major influence on genre fiction over the years: “The Criminal History of Fant?mas, France’s Favorite Fictional Villain”.

As villains go, Fantômas is a nasty one. Created in 1911, he is a gentleman criminal who perpetrates gruesome, elaborate crimes with no clear motivation. He hangs a victim inside a church bell so that when it rings blood rains on the congregation below. He attempts to kill Juve, the detective on his trail, by trapping the man in a room that slowly fills with sand. He skins a victim and makes gloves from the dead man’s hands in order to leave the corpse’s fingerprints all over the scene of a new crime.

His creators called him the “Genius of Evil” and the “Lord of Terror,” but he remained a cipher with so many identities that often only Jove would recognize him. The book that first introduces him begins with a voice asking: Who is Fantômas?

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 26, 1934 — One of America’s best-loved movie projects gets underway as producer Samuel Goldwyn buys the film rights to The Wizard of Oz.

(7) FAUX FACTS FOR SALE. Chuck Tingle’s Buttbart has opened an Alternative Fact Warehouse where you can purchase such alternative facts as “JOM HAMM IS YOUR HANDSOME ONLINE BUD WHO LIKES TO SKYPE” for a few dollars, with the proceeds going to Planned Parenthood.

(8) HE SAID ILK. Milo is scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley on February 1. He was prevented by protestors from speaking at another UC campus a few weeks ago. UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks has issued a statement reminding the university community that theirs is the home of the Free Speech Movement.

Mr. Yiannopoulos is not the first of his ilk to speak at Berkeley and he will not be the last. In our view, Mr. Yiannopoulos is a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to “entertain,” but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas. He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals, as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community….

Berkeley is the home of the Free Speech Movement, and the commitment to free expression is embedded in our Principles of Community as the commitment “to ensur(e) freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities.” As a campus administration, we have honored this principle by defending the right of community members who abide by our campus rules to express a wide range of often-conflicting points of view. We have gone so far as to defend in court the constitutional rights of students of all political persuasions to engage in unpopular expression on campus. Moreover, we are defending the right to free expression at an historic moment for our nation, when this right is once again of paramount importance. In this context, we cannot afford to undermine those rights, and feel a need to make a spirited defense of the principle of tolerance, even when it means we tolerate that which may appear to us as intolerant.

As part of the defense of this crucial right, we have treated the [Berkeley College Republicans’] efforts to hold the Yiannopoulos event exactly as we would that of any other student group. Since the event was announced, staff from our Student Affairs office, as well as officers from the University of California Police Department (UCPD), have worked, as per policy and standard practice, with the BCR to ensure the event goes as planned, and to provide for the safety and security of those who attend, as well as those who will choose to protest Yiannopoulos’s appearance in a lawful manner.

(9) EARLY WARNING. Declan Finn, in “Live and Let Bite, Best Horror at the Dragon Awards”, shows a photo of a Dragon Award trophy and declares —

In 2017, I’m going to be getting one of these.

Nice, huh? They look nifty, right? Here, let’s pull back a bit.

Yeah, I’m pretty much going to lay my cards on the table and say this is going to win the second annual Dragon Awards in 2017. This is not actually a boast. It’s just logical. No, seriously. Follow me around the windmills of my mind. Live and Let Bite is everything you loved in Honor at Stake and Murphy’s Law of Vampires, and then doubles down.

(10) THE MAGIC NUMBER. Dan Koboldt gives “5 Reasons to Vote for the Hugo Awards”.

2. Expose Yourself to Other Forms of SF/F

Most of us read enough novels to know how we want to vote in that category. Novels and series are the bread-and-butter of the SF/F genre. Furthermore, after the commercial success of Game of Thrones, Westworld, and other franchises, there are arguably more people reading SF/F novels than ever before. Thousand of people vote for the “best novel” Hugo Award.

I wish we could say the same about short stories, novelettes, and novellas.

Short fiction is a critical form of SF/F literature, and indeed is how many of us learned how to write. There are some wonderful markets that publish it — Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, and Nature, just to name a few — but the readership is much, much smaller. The Hugo Awards are a great opportunity to discover, read, and reward outstanding works in these briefer formats.

(11) AN ICE TOUR. Val and Ron Ontell are organizing pre- and post-Worldcon tours designed for those heading to Helsinki. Before the con there is a tour of Scandinavia, Talinn and St. Petersburg, and afterwards a tour of Iceland. Itineraries for both are at the site.

(12) FISHING WITH BAIT. John Joseph Adams has posted Hugo-eligible items and from Lightspeed, Nightmare and anthologies, and is offering to e-mail additional material to Hugo nominators with proof of voting eligibility.

If you are planning and eligible to vote for the Hugos this year, if you email me proof of your Worldcon membership (i.e., your name is listed on the Worldcon website as an attending member, or the email confirmation or receipt you received when you purchased your membership, etc.) I would be happy to make some additional 2016 material I edited available to you in digital format.

(13) ANOTHER FISHERMAN. Jameson Quinn wrote in a comment here today —

The paper on E Pluribus Hugo by Bruce Schneier and I had made it through peer review when the journal that had accepted it (Voting Matters) suddenly lost its funding and retroactively folded. We were trying to pressure the editor who had accepted it to help us find another place for it, but it looks as if that’s not happening. We’re still planning to publish it in another journal, but sadly we’ll probably have to repeat the whole peer review process. However, it is our belief that the paper is still eligible to be nominated for Best Related Work.

(14) TICKY. The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists make it out to be two-and-a-half minutes til Midnight — “Doomsday Click Moves Closer to Midnight, Signaling Concern Among Scientists” in the New York Times.

Ms. Bronson, in a post-announcement interview, explained why the board had included the 30-second mark in the measurement. She said that it was an attention-catching signal that was meant to acknowledge “what a dangerous moment we’re in, and how important it is for people to take note.”

“We’re so concerned about the rhetoric, and the lack of respect for expertise, that we moved it 30 seconds,” she said. “Rather than create panic, we’re hoping that this drives action.”

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Dr. Titley and Dr. Krauss elaborated on their concerns, citing the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, as well as President Trump’s pledges to impede what they see as progress on both fronts, as reasons for moving the clock closer to midnight.

“Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person,” they wrote. “But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Howard Osler, Van Ontell, David K.M.Klaus, Michael J. Walsh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W and Yours Truly.]

162 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/26/17 What Is The Pixel Capacity Of A European Scroll? Laden or Unladen? Aaargh!

  1. @Greg – My “side” is the rule of law and the US Constitution. I don’t support using the power of the State to shut down people who peaceably assemble and speak.

    So no, I’m not on “thin ice” at all.

    Unfortunately, on US campuses it is the Maoist left that tries to shut down people they oppose from speaking. Sorry if that bothers you.

  2. Here’s an interesting back and forth between the Berkeley administration and a number of professors that are asking for the event not to occur. Hopefully, it gets through because the document gives a better sense of what the debate is based on the regulations of the university, which is more relevant to the conversation than the constitution. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13mTOQ7wVst6voLMg6Pvr-3uJ2Fbn7zcXg_Bkx8mGDOk/edit

    The references to Maoism are just pure strawman argumentation. The argument and practice that fascists should be no platformed began long before there was a People’s Republic of China and can be seen in fights in Italy and Germany, along with the Battle of Cable Street.

  3. My “side” is the rule of law and the US Constitution. I don’t support using the power of the State to shut down people who peaceably assemble and speak.

    The power of protesters to protest is also constitutionally protected. Are protesters “the State”?

    ETA: Thanks, Robert, for that letter. The part where the writer explains “Apart from holding such noxious views, he actively incites his audiences to harass individuals,” sounds like a good reason why he’d be a hazard to students.

  4. @ jayn: A genuine commitment to “free speech” on the part of the university would have required them to make available an equivalent space nearby for a student protest, and to provide the same kind of security and protection for it that they did for the neo-Nazi. Because when one simultaneously argues that people have a protected right to hate speech but also that there should be no pushback against it or consequences for it, I question whether that’s really about free speech at all.

  5. jayn – The “state” is the tax supported university. If they prevent invited speakers from speaking by viewpoint bias – they will lose in court. This has been settled by the courts.

    “Protest” does not extend to violence or preventing others from speaking. Amazing how the left uses the term “protest” for violent censorship by the mob.

    I love it when some 770 people use the 1984 term “no platformed” for preventing people from speaking things they don’t like.

    Special snowflakes melt when they might be exposed to something that upsets them.

  6. “@others – preventing an invited speaker from speaking is using Maoist “

    Continue to be impressed by puppies that bragg about their total ignorance and lack of knowledge about political ideologies. Wanting to stop someone from spewing hatespeech does not a maoist make.

  7. @Lee – “Because when one simultaneously argues that people have a protected right to hate speech but also that there should be no pushback against it or consequences for it, I question whether that’s really about free speech at all.”

    Good points. If people try to prevent the protesters in a different area from speaking their mind – they should be arrested for trespass and/or assault/battery where applicable.

    Likewise, if people try to block, drown out, or use assault/battery to prevent the invited speaker from speaking they should also be arrested.

    Pushback in terms of protests of the talk (that does not stop the meeting) including economic boycotts or whatever is a consequence in a free society. More power to them. Banning the viewpoint and using thug tactics to prevent the assembly and speech is not acceptable.

    But where on US College campuses are the left prevented from speaking? Where is the violence against them? Answer – it almost never happens. But thug tactics against those perceived as enemies of the left are commonplace on University campuses.

  8. Brendan: This is not a university sponsored event. MY was invited by the Berkeley Republicans, and they are paying for all the costs of the appearance. Generally, any student group can reserve an unused lecture room and invite any one they want to come speak – when I was in college, most of the time we didn’t even give the name of the speaker to the college administration.
    I really don’t think Berkeley would be right to ban this.

  9. “Protest” does not extend to violence or preventing others from speaking. Amazing how the left uses the term “protest” for violent censorship by the mob.

    It seems to me you’re doing much the same thing…conflating all ‘protest’ against Yiannopolis’ speech, including the measured explanations of professors at the university of their objections to Yiannopolis as being based on the fact that he has a history of inciting his audience to harass individuals in the audience, which harassment Breitbart livestreams to a national viewership, as “violent censorship by the mob.”

  10. @bookworm, I’d recommend looking at the argument that I put up earlier in the thread. There has been a long thread of behavior on the part of MY that creates the logic to keep out of the institution as a public speaker that do not revolve around his particular political views. I’d like to note that I do think that the administration’s response, which is also included in the argument has some very legitimate responses and I’m not dismissing the position that they take.

    @airboy, so no, you really can’t construct an argument that doesn’t revolve around ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments.

  11. You know, I think Milos is just some mouthy bitch-queen who wouldn’t have been able to hold a real job if he hadn’t created this persona he’s getting rich off of and I wouldn’t spit on him if his hair was on fire.
    That said, let him speak. It helps identify the cretins who support him. I notice that everyone is busy yelling about him and over-looking the fact that it was Berkeley College REPUBLICANS who are bringing him here and are obviously hoping that he’ll get yelled down or banned so they can then say “Look how intolerant those lefty/liberals are; they talk a big talk about diversity and tolerance but only on their terms.”
    Will you people QUIT falling for their tactics already.
    Ignore him–it drives them crazy.
    But I know that there’s a hard-core faction out there that can’t help themselves even when it undermines them. They just gotta show how they’re not going to be told what to do.

  12. The UW College Republicans released a statement on the shooting that happened here. It’s one of the scariest things I’ve read in years, especially this part:

    If you keep prodding the right you may be unpleasantly surprised what the outcome will be. Youve obviously learned nothing after Trump’s election..

    Also? Bitch-queen is not the correct term when referring to Milo, and – as @Dawn Incognito pointed out – it’s pretty offensive.

    “Quisling” is closer to the correct term.

  13. “bitch-queen”? You’re gonna take it there? Ooooookay…
    You left of ‘mouthy’–that’s an important part.
    I’ve seen and had run-ins with his type since I came out in 73.
    It’s the only thing he has to get attention.
    And as my friends and I were saying about his speaking tours name–
    “Dangerous Faggot Tour? Bitch, you couldn’t deal with a real dangerous faggot.”

  14. airboy on January 27, 2017 at 12:05 pm said:

    jayn – The “state” is the tax supported university. If they prevent invited speakers from speaking by viewpoint bias – they will lose in court. This has been settled by the courts.

    “Protest” does not extend to violence or preventing others from speaking. Amazing how the left uses the term “protest” for violent censorship by the mob.

    I love it when some 770 people use the 1984 term “no platformed” for preventing people from speaking things they don’t like.

    Special snowflakes melt when they might be exposed to something that upsets them.

    I don’t have a problem with being exposed to ideas. I’ve read all sorts of rightwing garbage, sometimes just for cheap laughs. I only don’t comment at Vox Days blog, for example, because the delicate soul that he is threw a tantrum when I pointed out what Aristotle actually says about rhetoric*

    I regret but accept that in an open society there has to be a degree of tolerance even of views that promote intolerance. However, that very commitment to the notion that people should be free to express their ideas means that the tolerance of shtbags like Milo has limits. Those that use their speech to silence and intimidate others are necessarily a threat to free speech. When they bring with them (or incite) thugs to intimidate and threaten (or as we have seen use firearms to shoot people) then anybody actually committed to freedom of ideas has to consider the balance of the freedom of Milo to speak against the freedom of those he hates and seeks to silence to speak. Given that Milo is hardly lacking in platforms given his celebrity status as a lukewarm apologists for the fascists to the right of him, there seems to be little danger that somehow society will be deprived of Milo’s political thoughts, whereas actual individuals on campus (including people who are often targetted for violence such as transgender people) are faced with a genuine danger of having THEIR ability to speak curtailed.

    Governments, corporations and the right in general, show no adherence at all in their own spaces to this kind of hyper-level of commitment to free speech. No, this notion that some communities should be committed to free-speech EVEN TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE SPEECH OF PEOPLE IN THOSE COMMUNITIES is something that the right demands of spaces that tended to be dominated by the centre and the left. It is a demand for tolerance from those who practice intolerance and who aim to silence not only dissent but whole classes of people.

    *[to be fair it may have been that or it may have been because I criticised him here for trying to exploit the issue of child abuse for his petty campaign against the Hugos]

  15. I’ve just learned that Sarah Prince has died. No other details than that she was found dead in her home.

    Sarah and I go back to AZAPA, where we were both contributors in the second half of the 70s, making her one of my longest-standing fannish friends, and one I’ve seen occasionally in later years. I mourn her loss.

  16. @Camestros – I agree with most of what you wrote.
    “Governments, corporations and the right in general, show no adherence at all in their own spaces to this kind of hyper-level of commitment to free speech.”

    There is a difference between a public space and private property. If someone is creating a disturbance on private property, they may be punished for violating property rights. Protesting in public, especially when there is rational permitting is completely acceptable.

    “Spaces” claimed by the center and the left that are on private property are their own. If the center and the left claim public property is “their space” then they are wrong in the USA. Public universities are not “their space.”

    But again, agreed with almost everything you wrote.

  17. @Airboy

    When have I ever supported gamersgate?

    I don’t know if you have or not. Thank god I never fucking said you did. What it was a response to was:

    In contrast, how many leftist speakers are hounded off campus? Spat upon? Prevented from speaking? Having their speech drowned out by chants or tantrums? Having their signs destroyed? Answer – pretty much none.

    Pretty much none? That’s some 1984 historical level revisionism right there. (See? We can use 1984 too!) And that’s just ONE example, and it’s a pretty damn big one.

  18. Brendan:

    Okay, I think I see where you’re coming from in your later post. But I think bookworm1398 points out the important information. If you read Dirks’ statement as a defense of his invitation of this guy[1] and the “jackass” applied to the invitation, I’d get it. I was assuming that someone on campus had invited the guy and that Dirks was merely defending his refusal to bow to pressure from certain quarters and thwart this usual tradition of allowing all sorts of people to address the (indeed, public) university. So I read it simply as a defense of free expression and American and Berkley traditions and your post as calling him a jackass for that. So maybe a little honest and explicable misunderstanding from both of us.

    As can be seen from the rest of the thread, though, plenty of people see little value in free expression unless its their own.

    [1] Since I don’t follow the things that tend to get people exercised these days, I’d never heard of this guy until recently and still know almost nothing about him, nor is it relevant. Similarly, I wish people would stop trying to make this a left/right issue. The ACLU supports the right of both the NAACP and the KKK (for example) to peaceably march and for this world to work best, everybody has to give everybody a chance to put their two cents in so that everyone can make informed and free decisions.

    To some other folks and on other issues: I often see this tactic and, again, opening the door to it may be partly my fault. I raised the Constitution’s Bill of Rights but I didn’t suggest any legal maneuvers (obviously this Berkley speaking engagement isn’t a Congressional issue at this point, for instance). I was citing that as an example of how *the principle of free expression* is one of the bedrock principles of our society. People often try to maneuver into legal niceties to find a technicality that looks like it supports their position when the issue is one of ethos more than law. (Law is obviously important and would also seem to support Dirks’ position but that’s secondary to a more general issue.) Another thing people do is conflate issues and attach guilt. If a third party shoots someone that has little directly to do with the specific person in question and nothing to do with free speech. And one of the other issues that really bugs me is that of the idea of “inciting violence.” It’s an abdication of responsibility. Speakers should speak responsibly and can be legitimately criticized when they say stupid things but it is far more important that listeners *hear* responsibly and act responsibly and should be criticized for their stupid herd-like following of bad leaders. If you don’t like what someone’s saying then don’t believe or act as he suggests. Speak contrary views in return. Pretty simple.

    Also, yes, if Swedish or Canadian or Tajikistani readers are going to weigh in on an issue of America’s UC Berkley where everyone operates under US law and US custom, it might help to specify your origin and assumptions to avoid confusion. This is perhaps another reason free speech issues motivate me so: the vast majority of the world has no respect for the concept and even the vast majority of those who have it at all have a very restricted, impartial adherence to it and, even in the US, it is under constant siege.

  19. Also, yes, if Swedish or Canadian or Tajikistani readers are going to weigh in on an issue of America’s UC Berkley where everyone operates under US law and US custom, it might help to specify your origin and assumptions to avoid confusion.

    Oh, I see. I’m not American.

    My origin is “human” and my assumption is that people who are actively opposed to free speech for others while crying about their own (i.e. Milo et al) are hypocritical doers of evil who like to exploit sanctimonious and poorly thought through liberal sentiment about free-speech to ensure that they get a platform to demonise people of different races, genders, religions and sexual orientations whilst laughing at that self-same sentiment.

    I most emphatically do not believe a person has right to use their speech to deprive others of speech.

    // I’d never heard of this guy until recently and still know almost nothing about him//

    Which, let’s face it, is far more relevant to the discussion than what country people are from. You don’t (by your own admission) understand why people are angry at his presence at the place where they study.

    If free speech is not a right that arises out of a person’s humanity then it isn’t anything. Milo’s free speech (such that it is) would arise out of his humanity and not his nationality. – which, by the way, is British and not American.

  20. Jason on January 27, 2017 at 2:53 pm said:
    UC Berkeley may very well be within their rights to allow him to speak, given their history of free speech. But they might also want to reconsider that position when it comes to speakers who advocate discrimination against minorities.
    It’s actually up to the Chancellor, who is in charge of the campus, and the Regents, who are in charge of the entire UC system.

  21. The item about Forry Ackerman (I can call him that because I met him once and conversed for forty seconds) reminds me that in the library near my in-laws in New Jersey, there was a small remembrance of Harry “A” Chesler, a pioneering comic book publisher. I believe I have a photo of it, taken either in my early digital days or my late analog ones. It wasn’t lavish: It was a framed 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper laid out like a certificate, though in portrait orientation and without a border.

  22. @Peer Sylvester

    I never thought of Fantomas as “Forgotten” – I was a big Loui de Funés-Fan and he did a Fantomas-triology.

    Same here. I’m not sure about the younger generation, but Fantomas is very much a recognisable figure to anybody who grew up in the 1970s/80s, when the Louis de Funes adaptations (though de Funes played the inspector – Fantomas was played by Jean Marais). And the Italian Diabolik comics, which were strongly influenced by Fantomas, are still being published – at least I spotted one at the train station newsstand recently.

    Coincidentally, Fantomas became an unlikely crusader for marriage equality in the wonderful Czech TV series Arabela, when he forced a registry clerk at gunpoint to marry the titular heroine and her fiancé, who had been turned into a sheep and a grandfather clock respectively by a villainous wizard, because “As long as they love each other, what does it matter what they look like?”

  23. @ Harold: Y’know, saying “just ignore the bullies and they’ll go away” is bullshit and has been KNOWN to be bullshit for decades. If nobody pushes back, they take that as permission to get even worse. What gets me is how many people will argue endlessly that bullies have the right to say and do what they want, but nobody else has the right to do anything about it.

    Also, yes, “bitch-queen” is a term you really, really want to avoid. Whether you’re comparing the neo-Nazi to a woman or to a gay man, it’s damned assholic.

    Tribbles, trolls, and Nazis: the only safe number is none.

  24. Paul: Chicago-Lake Liquors is about a block from Uncle Hugo’s. You can certainly get a fifth there, though whether or not they’ll appreciate the pun I can’t say.

  25. Camestros said:
    “My origin is “human” and my assumption is that people who are actively opposed to free speech for others while crying about their own (i.e. Milo et al) are hypocritical doers of evil who like to exploit sanctimonious and poorly thought through liberal sentiment about free-speech to ensure that they get a platform to demonise people of different races, genders, religions and sexual orientations whilst laughing at that self-same sentiment.”

    Exactly. I feel the same way when the right shuts down speech. But unfortunately in the USA today it is the left who most often attempts to shut down speech. The left’s justification is: “demonise people of different races, genders, religions,” (political views) “and sexual orientations whilst laughing at that self-same sentiment” as you put it.

    I find it laughable that some 770 people who complain that different “voices” are not heard enough in SF/F are willing and happy to shut down the “voices” that do not agree with them politically in other venues.

    It makes me laugh that special snowflakes melt when they hear something they disagree with and try to shut down speech. Your term “hypocritical doers of evil” is apt.

    Today is the March for Life in DC. This is the longest ongoing political protest in my lifetime – now stretching 44 years. There are similar March for Life in almost all US cities and many small and large towns. Almost invisible to the major media, you have large numbers of concerned citizens protesting peacefully in the bitter cold of January every year for 44 years.

  26. Still breathing.

    Got done the things I needed to today, just barely, despite panic attacks.

    Genrenauts review coming soon, I think.

  27. Camestros Felapton:

    I’m not sure I completely followed all of your post but you seem to have taken offense at my mentioning other countries. I was referring to Greg Hullender’s comment that “Hampus is in Sweden, so it’s not a surprise if our willingness to support someone’s right to hate speech seems strange to him.” I found this informative and helpful. It would be inappropriate to criticize a Swedish person for not learning his American civics lessons and one might approach trying to persuade him of the value of American-style free speech differently than one might another American. Also, if I were to criticize some element of a foreign culture, I would do so cautiously and being on the alert for misunderstanding and would hope to have a better experience with that approach. That’s all I meant and can’t imagine how that could be offensive, even in these times of hyper-offensensitivity.

    As far as my not knowing the person intimately, my point there was two-fold. It’s not remotely that I don’t “understand why people are angry at his presence” – people have made that perfectly clear here and in the brief lookup I did another time he came up. My point was (a) I have no personal or ideological connection to the person and am in no way defending him but (b) I am defending the principle which matters specifically regardless of the person. (And, of course, regardless of his own nationality. Again, how that could be taken the way you seem to have puzzles me. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. I wasn’t saying anyone of any other nationality had more or less of a right to free speech – only that most other countries seem to claim and defend the right less and some actively oppose it as dangerous to their own societies. In the US, everyone should be free to speak. In China, for example, they aren’t. I can’t oxymoronically impose such freedoms on China but I need to argue all the more strongly for it if billions of people live without it and the few who have it are in danger of losing it. That’s all I meant by that.)

  28. @Lee-
    I called ’em as I saw ’em.
    I never used the phrase “Ignore the bullies and they go away”. As far as I’m concerned, if someone offed Milos, Reed, Graham and Robertson I may not be dancing in the street but I’ll shed no tears. My point was that they’re trying to use the left to feed their agenda.
    But if you weren’t such a condescending little twit you might have realized that.

  29. @ Harold: Quote: “Will you people QUIT falling for their tactics already. Ignore him–it drives them crazy.” If that’s not a variation on “ignore them and they’ll go away”, I don’t know what else to call it.

    Not rising to your ad hominem, TYVM.

  30. @Greg – yes, I’m aware that the U.S. provides more protection for speech than just about anywhere else in the world, including vile and offensive speech. I think that history shows that the best response to such speech is not to ban or proscribe it, but to peacefully (and vigorously) speak in opposition to it.
    @Jayn Even a public university is not ‘the government’, Bill. For the purposes of this discussion, it absolutely is. The Fourteenth Amendment means that the First Amendment applies to the states, and UCB is a state-run university.
    They are able – indeed required – to exercise discretion over what will be presented to the students as educational and what may be harmful to them and their safety.
    No, and again, no. A state university cannot exercise viewpoint-based “discretion” on the speech of others. But since you don’t seem to believe me, here is a law professor from UCB on this very issue:

    Berkeley law professor Robert Cole observes that First Amendment strictures apply to state actors, not private parties.
    “So if the question is do they apply to a state university, the answer, of course, is yes,” says Cole.
    In the case of Cal, says Cole, “Berkeley College Republicans is a university-sanctioned organization, and if, as it seems, it issued an invitation and arranged an engagement in accordance with university rules, then the university must allow the event. The university’s role is to remain a neutral marketplace. It can’t cancel a speaking event simply because a speaker is considered controversial, or officials are worried that it could result in bad publicity, or things could get raucous.”

    Note that last bit. Even if there is the potential for violent things to happen, the university has to allow the speech to occur. From Bible Believers v. Wayne County, Michigan:

    In this opinion we reaffirm the comprehensive boundaries of the First Amendment’s free speech protection, which envelopes all manner of speech, even when that speech is loathsome in its intolerance, designed to cause offense, and, as a result of such offense, arouses violent retaliation.

    aren’t you the one that said that a white man wearing an overtly racist costume of a gorilla wasn’t doing anything threatening when he waved a looped rope in POC’s faces during a BLM demonstration, because the rope wasn’t actually knotted in a noose? You never did answer my subsequent question asking whether you thought it was simply free speech if someone burns a cross every day in front of his neighbor’s house as long as he stays off his property, doesn’t damage his lawn and observes all local fire ordinances.
    I don’t recall exactly what I said, but I’ll say now that it doesn’t meet the legal standard of a “true threat”, which has (on one occasion) been defined as

    the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.

    As far as your burning cross question, I wouldn’t characterize it as “simply free speech”, but burning crosses in a situation like this aren’t illegal – the Supreme Court has said so twice (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) and Virginia v. Black (2003)).
    In Watts v. United States, a guy made a threat to shoot LBJ, and the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. This is far more specific and targeted than an idiot in a monkey suit with a rope, or a cruciform bonfire.
    Your participation in that discussion did convince me that your sense of both threats and equivalencies is a little…off.
    Believe what you want, but I’ve always tried to back up what I say with references to court decisions that confirm it. My assessments are based on what the law says, not on what I think it should be.
    @Rob – nothing in the article you linked causes me to want to change any of what I said. For the most part, it isn’t even relevant.

  31. “Exactly. I feel the same way when the right shuts down speech. But unfortunately in the USA today it is the left who most often attempts to shut down speech.”

    With Trump as president, this statement is as ridiculous as a statement can be.

  32. airboy on January 27, 2017 at 5:37 pm said:

    Exactly. I feel the same way when the right shuts down speech. But unfortunately in the USA today it is the left who most often attempts to shut down speech.

    Really? Wow, because I haven’t seen leftwing legislators passing the kinds of laws against protest we’ve just seen Republican legislators pass, nor have I seen rightwing demonstrators treated to the same kind of violence and brute force tactics being used against the Native American anti-pipeline demonstrations. Indeed, when I look into most (not all) complaints of supposed left wing attempts to shut down free speech it is actually leftwing people USING free speech to criticise others. Indeed Milo’s supposedly radical free speech agenda is very much a giant complaint about the left exercising ITS free speech to say that something is wrong or bad.

    I don’t agree with but have some respect for GENUINE radical free speech advocates (e.g. on Popehat) but sorry, most of these supposed radical free speech advocates are nothing of the sort. The right would not countenance somebody denigrating the military, and we saw very little commitment to free speech from the right during the Bush years and anti-war protests (small notable exceptions being Ron Paul).

    What the right is demanding is not free speech but the right to speak with criticism or consequence and the right to use private businesses to harass and spread malicious rumours.

  33. you seem to have taken offense at my mentioning other countries.

    No. I can’t imagine taking offence to you MENTIONING other countries. No I’m pretty sure the angry tone you might have detected was not from you MENTIONING other countries but from this statement which does something significantly MORE than merely mentioning other countries:

    Also, yes, if Swedish or Canadian or Tajikistani readers are going to weigh in on an issue of America’s UC Berkley where everyone operates under US law and US custom, it might help to specify your origin and assumptions to avoid confusion.

    That you are backpedalling away furiously from that towards merely ‘mentioning’ other countries suggest to me that my point was made sufficiently well and understood by you.

  34. airboy: But unfortunately in the USA today it is the left who most often attempts to shut down speech.

    Ah, yes, that would explain why 6 journalists are in jail and facing felony rioting charges merely for being present to cover demonstrations in Washington, DC — despite having presented their press credentials to arresting officers and not having been involved in the rioting.

    Tell me another tall tale. 🙄

  35. Camestros Felapton:

    I think I’m being trolled but, on the off-chance that you legitimately misunderstand, I’ll try one last time. I am backpedaling not one millimeter, furiously or otherwise. Actually, the only furious person here seems to be you. I find it amusing (if puzzling) that you quote my saying

    Also, yes, if Swedish or Canadian or Tajikistani readers are going to weigh in on an issue of America’s UC Berkley where everyone operates under US law and US custom, it might help to specify your origin and assumptions to avoid confusion.

    as though it somehow condemns me of something. It’s comparable to my saying, “For clarity of discussion, prior to stating your conclusions, state your premises,” and your replying, “J’accuse! You have deeply offended me!” It makes no sense. Offended you how? I reiterate that your point was not “made sufficiently well and understood by” me (and I doubt anyone else involved in these comments understands it either) and, since you won’t say in so many words what that point is, I’m not sure you understand your own point, either. Which is why I suspect this is a troll and not a legitimate expression of grievance. Certainly not one I gave any grounds for.

  36. @Jason

    Camestros is a regular commenter here and is unlikely to be trolling you. As you are a self-proclaimed advocate for free speech, perhaps you should ponder the irony of labeling someone else’s disagreement with you as illegitimate.

  37. Mark: Yeah, I thought about asking about that. So, okay, he is unlikely to be trolling me. Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?

    On the second point, I see no irony in the label at all. First, saying the supposed grievance is “illegitimate” in any sense is in no way censoring it or impairing his ability to express it and, second, I didn’t mean “illegitimate” in any deep sense but just in the sense of “if I’m being trolled by someone who isn’t really upset but is just trying to mess with me, it’s useless to try to have a rational discussion.” But if that’s not the case and a rational discussion is possible, then great. But I’m still at a loss as to exactly what the problem is (or, indeed, how there could be one).

    I’ll be away for awhile but will drop back by later today.

  38. Jason: you quote my saying: “Also, yes, if Swedish or Canadian or Tajikistani readers are going to weigh in on an issue of America’s UC Berkley where everyone operates under US law and US custom, it might help to specify your origin and assumptions to avoid confusion.” as though it somehow condemns me of something.

    It does. I’m an an American, and the first time I read what you posted, it sounded snotty and condescending. Upon second and third reading, it still does. If you are unable to recognize that it was snotty and condescending, then you should probably engage in some introspection about your personal biases before further posting.

    You appear to be new here, so I’ll clue you in: most of the Filers here are incredibly intelligent — to the point of being rocket scientists. Camestros in particular, despite being Australian, has over the last two years demonstrated that he is far more knowledgeable about the U.S., its history, and its politics (to name just a few areas of his expertise), than most of the Americans I know (including me — and, I suspect, you as well).

    You, I don’t know from Adam. You’ve come in here on a high horse acting as if you are able to school everyone else on this subject, and as if American law and precedent on the subject of free speech are clearly superior to that of any other country (something which is, contrary to your assertions, highly debatable) — and without even bothering to educate yourself about the subject under discussion. I am at this point only marginally convinced that you are not a troll.

    I encourage you to recognize that you are conversing with — at the very least — your intellectual equals here, and to try to engage in the discussion while leaving your smug, snotty attitude at the door. 🙄

  39. @Jason

    Mark: Yeah, I thought about asking about that. So, okay, he is unlikely to be trolling me. Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?

    Yes, I do, but I’m not here to speak for him. You may wish to take your own advice from upthread about listening responsibly.

  40. @ Jason –

    JJ gives good advice and it is well worth heeding. One thing I have learned over time is that *whatever* you know, someone on File 770 probably knows more about it than you do.

  41. @ Rob Thornton
    Well said. This is a very fast crowd; keeping up is hard work.
    @ Jason
    When I was new here, it took me a while to notice that many Filers are not Americans, and so don’t see the American system or circumstances as the default. I, too, took your statement about other countries as sneering. It may not have launched that way but it seems to have landed so. and I, too, find Camestros one of the sharpest knives in this drawer of keen cutlery.
    @ airboy,
    Since you asked, here are the examples of repression of leftist speech that floated to mind in a few minutes: a campus cop pepper spraying the faces of students on a UC campus who were sitting silently on the ground, the violent responses to protests in Ferguson, including arrest of journalists, gamergate in general and bomb threats forcing Anita Sarkeesian to cancel a speech at a university in particular, the continuing violence against anti-pipeline protestors, and the successful efforts of some Republican state governmeets to silence dissent in and around the statehouse. People have been arrested in Wisconsin for singing patriotic songs and protesters can’t speak or carry signs in North Carolina. One of the Solons of the legislature is putting forth a bill making it a crime to shout at, intimidate or upset former government officials, as well as current ones (I.e. Making everywhere a safe space for McCrory of bathroom bill fame). Other states with R governments are planning to follow suit.
    And about the silly use of “Maoist” to characterize opponents of free speech; what is Maoist about that? You could equally have used czarist, royalist or apartheid, to name a very few. You will recall that Southerners in Congress passed a gag rule against antislavery petitions; why not say “pro-slavery”?
    @ all commenting on MY
    Wow, that was a lively discussion. As outrage appears to be his oxygen, why not organize a meeting/party for those he usually attacks at the same time as his talk? I keep thinking of the wonderful “angels” blocking out the view of the Westboro Phelpsies at funerals that they attempt to picket.

  42. I am not an absolute newbie, but I don’t have a great a history here as some. I think the national backgrounds of some of the active filers here go as follows:

    Hampus – Sweden
    Cora — Germany
    Camestros — Australia (I had decided that he is not American, but didn’t know he was Australian until just now)
    JJ — American
    Bill – I’m American

    I don’t know about most of the rest of you, and if anyone wants to volunteer their background, it might be helpful to the rest of us.

    My general assumption, this being an American site, hosted by an American, and most of the discussion about American events and American media and authors, is that most of the commenters are American. But I realize that this is not always the case, and that while that is a good guess most of the time, it will be wrong some of the time. I also realize that SFF is not uniquely American, that it has fans all over the world, and that some very fine writing comes from other places.

    I didn’t take Jason’s comments as asserting that American viewpoints are superior so much as that they are more relevant than the viewpoints of other countries to to the particular discussion at hand — offensive speech and possible suppression thereof in Berkeley, California. (which is why I responded so strongly to Hampus earlier in the thread — I couldn’t understand why he kept saying it could be suppressed when American case law is so clear on the subject).

  43. Msb on January 28, 2017 at 8:08 am said:
    Add the proposed law in (IIRC) North Dakota, which would make it legal for a driver to hit a protestor with a vehicle.

  44. @Bill

    You could have reasonably assumed that most of the people regularly posting in the wee hours of your nighttime are quite likely to be from other parts of the world. There are half a dozen Brits at least (inc myself), at least one person from New Zealand, IIRC other people posting from Belgium, Turkey, not to mention the Canadians, oh people from lots of different places.

    TBH, assuming that people on the internet are Americans is an unhelpful default to have. This thing doesn’t have borders!

  45. @Bill: I looked at those court decisions just now (thank you for the opportunity to educate myself) and they don’t seem to say what you say they said. IANAL, so I may not be understanding it correctly, but as I understand it, while burning a cross as an expression of an idea (however repugnant an idea) cannot be constitutionally prohibited – hence the first decision saying that the teen who planted a burning cross on his neighbor’s lawn could not be prosecuted under an ordinance that outright prohibited such things, the later decision clarified that burning crosses and the like could be constitutionally prohibited if they were used with the intent to intimidate:

    (From Wikipedia, which I acknowledge is not the greatest source):

    In Virginia v. Black the Court found that Virginia’s statute against cross burning is unconstitutional, but cross burning done with an intent to intimidate can be limited because such expression has a long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor delivered the opinion stating, “a state, consistent with the First Amendment, may ban cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate.” In so doing, the Court considered the speech to be constitutionally unprotected “true threats.” Under that carve-out, “a State may choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm.”

    …which gives the impression that the original cross-burning teen might have been successfully prosecuted if St. Paul had had the foresight to word its law to include “with intent to intimidate” and provided proof that the teen DID intend to do so. So your off-the-cuff legal opinion that that poor, poor boy dressed in a gorilla suit who went up to the Black Lives Matter demonstrators waving a looped rope in their faces should NOT have been arrested because the rope wasn’t knotted in a noose and therefore could not be considered a “true threat” doesn’t seem to carry a whole lot of weight…and also, strictly IMO, seems to show a certain insensitivity to threatening behavior that doesn’t directly apply to you.

    As for this:

    “It can’t cancel a speaking event simply because a speaker is considered controversial, or officials are worried that it could result in bad publicity, or things could get raucous.”

    Note that last bit. Even if there is the potential for violent things to happen, the university has to allow the speech to occur. “

    That is a whole LOT of alarming conclusion to hang on the one word, “raucous,” which, as I consult the dictionary, means “noisy” and even “boisterous and disorderly”, but has nothing in its definition about “violent” or even “threatening.”

    As to how all this applies to MY: if he were the author of The Bell Curve and had been invited to expound on his theories of racial inferiority toward the young Republicans, I’d say the university had no right to stop him, though they’d have no right to stop any protesters from objecting to his presence and demonstrating against it either. But I gather MY does not just expound obnoxious and pernicious theories in his lectures – he also singles out individual students in his audience as examples of things that should be harassed out of existence. He does this on Breitbart livestream, and harassment HAS followed for these people. MY is well aware of the harassing behavior of his followers and has indeed notoriously harnessed it against specific targets. Given that AND the fact that one of his followers shot a protester, I’d say the university can make a pretty strong case that free speech does not cover the hazard that MY’s intimidation tactics pose to the students.

    And despite your assertion that the university has NO right to stop anything that might become dangerous because FREE SPEECH, the fact that in loco parentis is no longer in force doesn’t mean that the university can legally put its hands in its pockets and shrug danger off. As far as I understand it, in cases of rape and in cases of hazing that eventually resulted in bodily injury, universities have been found liable, and derelict in their responsibility to take reasonable precautions to prevent easily predictable harm to the students.

    “The university is not an insurer of the safety of its students nor a policeman of student morality, nonetheless, it has a duty to regulate and supervise
    foreseeable dangerous activities occurring on its property (Furek
    v. University of Delaware, 1991, p. 522).”

    Page 79

    Which gives it a greater responsibility than the government has toward a man who sets up a soapbox in the park and his spectators – regardless of whether it is a public university or a private one. So your view that the university MUST allow MY to speak or else be guilty of violating the constitution? Strictly in my opinion, you’re full of it.

Comments are closed.