(1) WON’T BE THE FIRST TIME. The organizers anticipate some accepters will make some political statements from the stage of the National Book Awards ceremony on November 15: “Israel-Hamas War Sows Disruption at the National Book Awards” in the New York Times.
As the cultural fallout from the war in the Middle East continues, several finalists for the National Book Award plan to call for a cease-fire in Gaza during the ceremony on Wednesday. Two sponsors have decided not to attend the ceremony after learning authors were planning a political statement.
“I don’t want to look back on this time,” said Aaliyah Bilal, a finalist in the fiction category and one of the authors planing to speak out, “and say that I was silent while people were suffering.”
Rumors that authors would take a stand regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict during the ceremony were flying in the days leading up to the event, but it was unclear what the statement would include, leaving several sponsors concerned.
One of the sponsors that withdrew after learning that some authors were planning a political statement was Zibby Media. Zibby Owens, the company’s founder, wrote in an essay published on Substack that her company had withdrawn because she was afraid the remarks at the ceremony would take a stance against Israel, noting that “we simply can’t be a part of anything that promotes discrimination, in this case of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Another sponsor, Book of the Month, has also decided not to attend. In a statement, the organization said it continued to support the event.
On Tuesday, the National Book Foundation sent a message to all the sponsors and those who purchased tickets, alerting them to the likelihood that winners were planning to issue political statements from the podium. The letter said that one group had decided to withdraw its sponsorship altogether….
(2) PROTESTORS AT GILLER PRIZE CEREMONY. Last night’s Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto was interrupted twice by protestors: “Three people charged in Giller Prize protest” at CP24.
Toronto police say three people are facing charges after a surprise protest which hijacked a gala for the Scotiabank Giller Prize – one of the biggest nights in Canadian literature.
The glitzy awards ceremony was held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville Monday night.
The $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize went to Montreal native Sarah Bernstein for her novel, “Study for Obedience.”
Just as the prize was being announced, a protester posing as a photographer interrupted the ceremony – which was being broadcast live on CBC – with antiwar slogans.
A video of the incident posted to social media shows a woman yelling at the room while several others held up signs accusing Scotiabank of “genocide” for investment in an arm’s company that deals with Israel.
Publishers Lunch reports a Scotiabank asset investment fund holds a five percent stake (worth roughly $500 million) in Elbit Systems, the “largest non-government-owned defense company in Israel.”
(3) NANOWRIMO CONCERN. This report about the NaNoWriMo Youth Forums says the Board of Directors had to step in because of allegations against a moderator. The following is an excerpt from a thread which begins here.
And this tweet links to a 5-minute Rebecca Thorne Tik-Tok video commentary on the situation where she says “Now is the time to change your password, your email, and check your kids if they’ve been on these forums”.
(4) 2024 GRAMMY BALLOT INCLUDES SFF NOTABLES. The “2024 GRAMMY Nominations” were released on November 10, with nearly one hundred categories. William Shatner stands alone in his category, but the next four are almost entirely filled by musical works of genre interest.
68. Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording
Boldly Go: Reflections On A Life Of Awe And Wonder
William Shatner69. Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media
Award to the principal artist(s) and/or ‘in studio’ producer(s) of a majority of the tracks on the album. In the absence of both, award to the one or two individuals proactively responsible for the concept and musical direction of the album and for the selection of artists, songs and producers, as applicable. Award also goes to appropriately credited music supervisor(s).
AURORA
(Daisy Jones & The Six)Barbie The Album
(Various Artists)Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From And Inspired By
(Various Artists)Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: Awesome Mix, Vol. 3
(Various Artists)Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Weird Al Yankovic70. Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media (Includes Film And Television)
Award to Composer(s) for an original score created specifically for, or as a companion to, a current legitimate motion picture, television show or series, or other visual media.
Barbie
Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, composersBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever
Ludwig Göransson, composerThe Fabelmans
John Williams, composerIndiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
John Williams, composerOppenheimer
Ludwig Göransson, composer71. Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media
Award to Composer(s) for an original score created specifically for, or as a companion to, video games and other interactive media.
Call Of Duty®: Modern Warfare II
Sarah Schachner, composerGod Of War Ragnarök
Bear McCreary, composerHogwarts Legacy
Peter Murray, J Scott Rakozy & Chuck E. Myers “Sea”, composersStar Wars Jedi: Survivor
Stephen Barton & Gordy Haab, composersStray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Jess Serro, Tripod & Austin Wintory, composers72. Best Song Written For Visual Media
A Songwriter(s) award. For a song (melody & lyrics) written specifically for a motion picture, television, video games or other visual media, and released for the first time during the Eligibility Year. (Artist names appear in parentheses.) Singles or Tracks only.)
Barbie World [From “Barbie The Album”]
Naija Gaston, Ephrem Louis Lopez Jr. & Onika Maraj, songwriters (Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice Featuring Aqua)Dance The Night [From “Barbie The Album”]
Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Dua Lipa)I’m Just Ken [From “Barbie The Album”]
Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Ryan Gosling)Lift Me Up [From “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From And Inspired By”]
Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Robyn Fenty & Temilade Openiyi, songwriters (Rihanna)What Was I Made For? [From “Barbie The Album”]
Billie Eilish O’Connell & Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)
(5) LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] The last day of the current LearnedLeague off-season featured a fun quiz on invented religions in a wide range of SF and fantasy. I got 9/12. You can find the questions here: “Fictional Theology”.
(6) SACRIFICIAL RAMMING SPEED. While you may have missed the latest NCIS television spinoff (I certainly did), Camestros Felapton confesses “I watched NCIS Sydney”.
…The choice of city is obvious from the opening shots which take in the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House before taking us to the naval base near Woolloomooloo. You really can’t go wrong with filming Sydney Harbour, it is genuinely photogenic and really does have visiting naval vessels in it. Apparently, the real NCIS does have an Australian sub-office but it is in Perth, which is a lovely city but lacks the kind of recognisable landmarks that invading aliens or kaiju like to destroy….
(7) IT TURNS OUT MOUNT DOOM IS FREEWAY CLOSE TO POMPEII. In Italy, where the right wing is trying to appropriate Tolkienesque icons and themes, Politico takes readers “Inside Giorgia Meloni’s Hobbit fantasy world”.
Introducing soon-to-be Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at her final election campaign rally last year, the compère lifted a line from a battle speech in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings: “The day of defeat will come, but not today.”
Meloni has made it no secret that the fantasy epic is her favorite literary work. As a young activist she dressed up as a hobbit; after she became a minister, she posed next to a statue of Gandalf for a magazine photoshoot….
…The Ministry of Culture is funding an exhibition in Rome marking 50 years since the author’s death at a cost of €250,000, according to an official, who said the ministry hopes to recoup the funds from ticket sales. Meloni herself will open the show on November 15 at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art before it moves to other Italian cities.
Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano announced the show to the youth wing of Meloni’s party in July as “a gift.”
On Wednesday, presenting the exhibition, Sangiuliano said the show was “not by accident but deliberate and desired.” In response to a question by POLITICO, he insisted that Meloni had not requested the show but “only found out later.”
In the 1970s the far right would organize “Hobbit camp” festivals; Meloni has recalled that her friends were nicknamed Frodo, Gandalf and Hobbit, after central characters from the books.
She has quoted liberally from Tolkien throughout her career, from one of her first political speeches as a youth leader in 2002, to her autobiography in 2022. In 2015 she called on followers to combat that “sly enemy that Tolkien called the rings of power,” referring to the global financial elite….
(8) A BIG IMPROVEMENT. Christopher Nieman’s cover for The New Yorker shows robots are here to help us. (Click on item to see all panels.)
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born November 14, 1907 — Astrid Lindgren. Creator of the Pippi Longstocking series and, at least in the States, lesser known Emil i Lönneberga, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, and the Six Bullerby Children series as well. In January 2017, she was calculated to be the world’s eighteenth most-translated author, and the fourth-most translated children’s writer after Enid Blyton, H. C. Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. There have been at least forty video adaptations of her works over the decades mostly in Swedish but Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter was an animated series in Japan recently. (Died 2002.)
- Born November 14, 1951 — Beth Meacham, 72. In 1984, she became an editor for Tor Books, where she rose to the position of editor-in-chief. After her 1989 move to the west coast, she continued working for Tor as an executive editor until her retirement. She does have one novel, co-written with Tappan King, entitled Nightshade Book One: Terror, Inc. and a handful of short fiction. A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy that she co-wrote wrote with Michael Franklin and Baird Searles was nominated for a Hugo at L.A. Con II. She has been nominated for six Hugos as Best Professional Editor or Best Editor Long Form.
- Born November 14, 1963 — Cat Rambo, 60. All around great person. Past President of SFWA. She was editor of Fantasy Magazine for four years which earned her a 2012 nomination in the World Fantasy Special Award: Non-Professional category. Her novelette Carpe Glitter won a 2020 Nebula, and her short story “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” was a 2013 Nebula Award finalist. Her impressive fantasy Tabat Quartet quartet begins withBeasts of Tabat, Hearts of Tabat, and Exiles of Tabat, and will soon be completed by Gods of Tabat. She also writes amazing short fiction as well. The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers is her long-standing school for writers that provides her excellent assistance in learning proper writing skills through live and on demand classes about a range of topics. You can get details here. Her latest, Devil’s, was a stellar listen and an outstanding sequel to You Sexy Thing.
- Born November 14, 1969 — Daniel Abraham, 54. Co-author with Ty Franck of The Expanse series which won a Hugo at CoNZealand. Under the pseudonym M. L. N. Hanover, he is the author of the Black Sun’s Daughter urban fantasy series. Abraham collaborated with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois to write the Hunter’s Run. Abraham also has adapted several of Martin’s works into comic books and graphic novels, such as A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, and has contributed to Wild Cards anthologies. By himself, he picked up a Hugo nomination at Denvention 3 for his “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” novelette.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Eek! has a grotesque Wolverine joke.
(11) ARMOR MUSEUM EXHIBIT IN HUNTSVILLE. [Item by Marc Criley.] Armor frequently plays a key supporting role in high fantasy and historical fiction set in a certain era.
Pay a visit to the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama to see what really protected those that became the storytellers’ myths and legends. The Age of Armor: Treasures from the Higgins Armory Collection at the Worcester Art Museum on display now until January 14, 2024.
Far from the ungainly exoskeleton we often imagine today, the suit of armor was made to be sleek and stylish—painstakingly engineered, elegantly designed, and treasured as the expression of its owner’s taste, sophistication, and prowess.
(12) DISGRACELAND. “Shock of the old: eight abandoned and appalling theme parks” – the Guardian has a little list. Here’s one example:
Gulliver’s Kingdom, Japan
Given its wholesome location, nestled up against the Aokigahara “suicide forest” and the Aum Shinrikyo cult headquarters in Japan, it’s impossible to imagine why this Jonathan Swift tribute park didn’t catch on. It’s the kind of thing you could threaten your kids with: “Be good, or we’ll go and see the vast, nightmarish statue of a man in a book you’ve never read.” Did they serve Modest Proposal burgers? It’s been demolished now; probably best for the planet’s collective psychological wellbeing.
(13) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. [Item by Steven French.] Well, who hasn’t lost a ring at some time or another …?! “Saturn’s Rings Will Temporarily Disappear From View in 2025” according to Smithsonian Magazine.
… In reality, it all has to do with planetary alignment. Saturn’s rings are so thin that they seemingly vanish when viewed edge-on. And as Earth and Saturn travel around the sun on their respective orbital paths, our planet reaches this particular vantage point like clockwork, roughly every 13 to 16 years.
As Saturn completes its orbit over approximately 29.4 Earth years, it leans at an angle of 26.7 degrees. This means that our view of Saturn toggles between the upper side of its rings when it’s tilted toward us and the lower side when it’s tilted away. We get the special, ringless view of the planet when Earth transitions between each of these perspectives and passes through Saturn’s “ring plane,” essentially, any area of space that’s in line with the edge of its rings.
From that angle, “they reflect very little light and are very difficult to see, making them essentially invisible,” Vahe Peroomian, a physicist and astronomer at the University of Southern California, tells CBS News’ Caitlin O’Kane…
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Anne Marble, Marc Criley, Nicholas Whyte, Steven French, Lise Andreasen, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mike Kennedy, for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]
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“File the Pixels you Scroll with your Scrolls”
(13) think how Sauron feels.
ROTFLMAO! I know where you got the title from, Mike. Esp. effective after arriving home yesterday evening after a two-day drive from Chicago/Windycon.
(7) I still think the perfect answer would be for Italian Greens to dress up as ents, and protest.
(11) There’s also a gorgeous display of arms and armor at the Art Institute of Chicago.
11 ) My favorite arms and armor is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, naturally
(3) Eww. Also, use caution if you Google the initials of the fetish. You might end up finding some weird stuff on Amazon and Etsy. (It is not related to the bank in Nepal.)
(6) NCIS Sydney?!… Did they run out of places in the U.S.?
(7) Ick. If I visit Italy, I’ll try to avoid be seen reading fantasy novels.
(9) Happy birthday to Beth Meacham! And to Cat Rambo with the lovely newsletters!
(9) Cat Rambo — Happy Birthday to the author of two of the very best pieces of short fiction of the last decade — “Red in Tooth and Cog” and “Crazy Beautiful”
Anne Marble says NCIS Sydney?!… Did they run out of places in the U.S.?
Remember the Mission Impossible series shot during the writers strike of the 1980s in Australia? Same thing. They can shoot series there during strikes here as the performers and other creative folk aren’t covered by the same Unions.
Mike, you didn’t miss it. The first episode is airing tonight here.
Then check back with me in a little while when I can officially tell you I missed it.
I dropped my YouTube TV subscription til I’ve paid off my new hearing aids.
Mike Glyer says
Then check back with me in a little while when I can officially tell you I missed it.
I dropped my YouTube TV subscription til I’ve paid off my new hearing aids.
I think the only place it’s streaming is Paramount + which is where the other NCIS series are. I’m going to watch it tomorrow.
I hadn’t thought about that but the US cast members presumably would still be in the US actors union?
Camestros Felapton says I hadn’t thought about that but the US cast members presumably would still be in the US actors union?
An excellent question.
Now guess what series has no US cast members? Yeah this one. It almost did have several in the primary cast with the idea that it would be a joint American-Australian endeavour but in the end they went with an all Australian cast doing a strictly Australian story.
NCIS: Sydney was planned and filmed for the Australian market.
We’re seeing it in the US because CBS is desperate for something to fill their primetime schedule.
John Lorentz says NCIS: Sydney was planned and filmed for the Australian market.
We’re seeing it in the US because CBS is desperate for something to fill their primetime schedule.
Yep. It got some of its funding from Paramount +. And as I said, originally it was going to a joint story but that never came to be.
The NCIS: Sydney before they started filming had pitched the idea to the NCIS franchise folk who made sure it fit in.
(3) That’s horrific.
(7) I’d like the Ents to pay her a visit.
I was surprised that the U.S. broadcast networks didn’t air some British TV shows during the strike. Some of them are even attempts to do a more American-style show than what the Brits are known for, like Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty.
U.S. audiences would love that show, says me as a U.S. audience member who loves it as much as I hate bent coppers.
(1), (2) So, the sad puppies turn out not to have been wrong after all; publishing and writing have been taken over by the woke excuse-makers for atrocities, as long as the victims are Jews.
(U cant touch this scroll title)
I hadn’t realised that. I did note that the two ostensibly American main characters don’t have much of a bio on IMDB. Are they ex-pat Americans in Oz or Aussies faking the accent?
CBS is airing the original British version of Ghosts beginning tomorrow night as Ghosts UK to fill in the gap until new episodes are ready in February.
Camestros Felapton says I hadn’t realised that. I did note that the two ostensibly American main characters don’t have much of a bio on IMDB. Are they ex-pat Americans in Oz or Aussies faking the accent?
Neither. Olivia Swann and Sean Segar are British. Admittedly a very odd cast decision.
Real Housewives of Gor
c4c
(7) And the reaction of the very litigious Tolkien estate to this coopting of Jirt’s entire ouvre for political memes including not-so-subtle antisemitic dog whistles is…?
(3) I’ll admit I’m really disappointed in Nano right now, given that I served as an ML for several years and genuinely believed in the mission. Content moderation is hard, but anything involving youth has to be treated as a ‘suspend first, then investigate.’
Having been an ML, and thus dealing with HQ, I know the whole thing runs on a shoestring budget, but that’s not an excuse. If you’re going to have a youth program, you need to be proactive. Period. It should have never gotten to the point where the board has to step in and do something.
Ugh, seriously. Hopefully now that the board’s involved, something will be done.
LOL – well I guess plenty of US shows have cast British actors as Americans, so this makes some sort of sense.
3) Aargh. I too was a NaNo ML for some years (and I’m still doing the writing bit, 27264 words in at last count.) Yes, it’s a shoetring operation that depends on its volunteers. But in this day and age, there is no excuse for failing to react to a red flag of that magnitude.
I don’t recall any problems with our junior WriMos – we had all in-person meet-ups in daylight hours, at public all-ages venues, parents and/or legal guardians could come check us out (at least one did, IIRC, and found us harmless enough). And of course we monitored the regional forum to make sure everything was in keeping with the famous “family friendly star”. (While also taking the mickey out of it pretty unmercifully – “Oh, [Family Friendly Star]!” became our go-to swearword for a while, back then.)
Now, the first reaction of management when confronted by an issue like this is often “do nothing and hope it goes away”. And there is an understandable reluctance to accept the fact that someone you know is actually an abuser. ” Abusers are monsters! We know that from the media! Our friend isn’t a monster, they’re just a regular person!” It’s understandable. That doesn’t make it right.
(I don’t recognise the acronym. I’ve led a sheltered life. Should I Google it, or am I better off not knowing?)
It probably is a typo for ABDL, “Adult Baby Diaper Lover”, someone who wears diapers for pleasure.
@Bob Roehm
“CBS is airing the original British version of Ghosts beginning tomorrow night as Ghosts UK to fill in the gap until new episodes are ready in February.”
I can’t speak to the American version, but the BBC Ghosts (which broadcast its final season this year, sigh.) is one of the best comedies ever made.
The FAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service have completed their reviews of SpaceX’s launch plans and and issued their final reports, and given approval for the next launch of Starship. The FAA has issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) closing airspace around Boca Chica for Friday Nov. 17, but has not yet issued the expected Launch License. SpaceX appears to be planning for a Friday launch.
Re SpaceX: Am I the only one who gets annoyed by the use of the term “Starship” for a vehicle that never goes beyond Earth orbit, let alone the vicinity of Sol? It’s like naming your canoe “The Deep Sea Submersible Explorer”! 🙂
Well, so far it’s never gone much beyond Brazos Island. But the name is aspirational. The Saturn 5 never went to the ringed planet, and Apollo wasn’t very much like a chariot riding across the Sun.
Those aspirational names are better than full disclosure names — even if the spring break crowd might be willing to invest in a rocket called Blasted at the Beach.
7 out of 12 on the quiz, if I count my rather garbled version of the energy field answer. (Trying not to spoil.) I had read or consumed 4 of the other 5 works in question (probably—in one case it was long ago, if so) but I had either forgotten, or momentarily blanked on, the required answer.
My broadcast reception of CBS out here in the suburbs is very iffy and no joy there last night. I was very annoyed to see the network was not offering NCIS Sidney for free streaming even during its live over-air broadcast. I would have watched at least once for the local color. The local CBS affiliates in both DC and Baltimore really fumbled the transition to digital over-air broadcasting, in contrast to the other major networks, plus PBS and many minor players.
Once or twice years back, I caught naked-eye sight of the real NCIS HQ building in the DC Navy Yard. The location must be hideous to get into and out of, at least during normal weekday working hours. Nothing like the way agents tear in and out on TV.
Camestros Felapton says LOL – well I guess plenty of US shows have cast British actors as Americans, so this makes some sort of sense.
I’m reasonably sure that Doctor Who has cast British performers as Americans. And I’ve seem more than once British series use pure Anglos cast as Hindus. And I’m not talking generations ago.
Well, Doctor Who has cast British actors as Sontarans, Zygons, Sensorites and Ice Warriors. Americans aren’t that much stranger.
There’s a great deal one can say about British TV casting decisions in the late Fifties through the Eighties, and very little of it is good. The much-missed Zienia Merton, actually British-Burmese, got drafted in to play any vaguely ethnic young woman, from Chinese to Hungarian. And then there was The Adventures of Sir Francis Drake, in which the dastardly Spanish clearly had to be darker-skinned than the dashing Anglo-Saxon hero… except that Terence Morgan, who played Drake, was distinctly on the tanned side himself. So the Spanish (with the exception of the also much-missed, and genuinely Spanish, Roger Delgado) were mostly played by Indian and Pakistani actors. I suppose that at least it gave some good roles to Indian and Pakistani actors… who were not greatly in demand to play Indian and Pakistani roles, as Cat says.
Forty pixels? That’s as many as four tens. And that’s terrible!
I have noticed quite a bit of improvement of the representation of American English by UK actors over the decades–there was a time when a Brit playing an American tourist or cop or whatever sounded as false as Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney in Mary Poppins.
To my ear, though, the champion accent chameleons are Australians and New Zealanders, though actors from Scotland, Yorkshire, and Northumerland have always had to grow a southern tooth if they wanted to go beyond regional-character parts. (Think of David Tennant.) I suspect that UK/Australian/Kiwi drama schools spend a lot more time on mastering accents than US schools do–I should ask my niece-the-actor. (And code-switching has been a crucial class-mobility skill in the UK for at least a couple centuries.)
@bill
I was afraid that searching for that acronym was going to give me some very strange results next time I went to Amazon or Facebook…
BTW is anyone else getting “Request Header Fields Too Large” errors when accessing File 770 via Firefox? 😐
Interestingly, the Google search results for “ADBL vampire juice” turned out to be much less alarming than I’d thought.
Hyman: If I’m not mistaken, the puppies claimed that the literary world was controlled by Jewish folks. Hence Wright’s claim that Moshe Feder is a “Christ Hater” – a term that is not familiar at all.
On an unrelated topic, I hope the people who celebrated Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his welcoming of new and exciting viewpoints suppressed by the mainstream are still enjoying his agreement with a “(weird mustache guy) was right!” post.
@Avram Livegood
“Puppies” are not monolithic. You may have…hell, probably did…see something along those lines from the rabid faction. Of the few in the sad faction that I follow in various places, I’ve seen nothing but support for Israel over the last month.
I’m not impressed with Mr. Wright’s fiction and therefore don’t follow anything of his various media channels. But in light of the above, I checked his blog. October 26th had an entry supportive of responding to Hamas in kind for their incursion of October 7th.
And, again inspired by your comment, I found the passage where Mr. Wright refers to Mr. Feder as a “Christ Hater”. He was being political (surprise) rather than anti-semitic. This isn’t offered as a defense of Mr. Wright. It is an invitation to seek the original context of the comments. Google and DuckDuckGo are fine resources.
I’m pleased and proud to maintain that Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X has produced a net positive benefit. Prior to his take-over a staff that was predominantly leftist was throttling any user expressing anything mildly right-of-center. They were banning right-of-center accounts that offered violence to others while leaving left-of-center accounts untouched for precisely the same behavior.
Biased administration of social media is, IMO, one significant factor that influenced the 2020 elections.
The change in management restored some measure of balance to the administration of their Ts & Cs. The application of justice must always be blind or it isn’t justice.
Move just a bit forward in time to just last month. X was one valid source presenting information about Hamas’ assault on and murder of Israeli civilians.
Given the demonstrable penchant for leftists to excuse Hamas and vilify Israel, how do you think the former administrators of Twitter would have behaved over the last month? Would they have allowed IDF videos of the Hamas facilities that they have uncovered? Would the old Twitter admins have permitted the airing of Hamas GoPro videos where they murdered Israelis?
Does Mr. Musk suffer from cranial rectumitus relative to Israel? Yes.
Is X perfect? Nope.
But X/Twitter is under better stewardship today.
Regards,
Dann
A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by. – John Wayne
@Dann665–You’re going to need a heaping pile of real evidence to make a plausible case that anyone calling a Jew a “Christ hater” wasn’t being antisemitic. No, “he was being political” doesn’t even come close to starting that case. ????
Hard right folks have long combined hardline support for the state of Israel, and calling any criticism at all of Netanyahu “antisemitism,” even when it comes from Jews in Israel, who might be supposed to have the right to criticize their elected government’s policy choices, with blatant antisemitism in literally any other context.
And from what you say, I think it’s possible I’ve read more of Wright’s work than you have, in the days when he was published by Tor and had a real editor. He’s capable of being a very good writer, if only he hadn’t gotten tired of being edited. Saying he needs an editor isn’t disparagement. Every writer needs an editor.
But even when he got too big to be edited, and for all I can join in enthusiastic criticism of some things in some of his non-edited or de-edited books, Robert Heinlein never remotely approached the kind of poison in Wright’s post-Tor works. Heinlein is someone I had political disagreements with, not disagreements about the fundamental humanity of people he didn’t like.
@Lis Carey
All I can suggest is that you go find his blog entry and read what he said at the time. I’m not interested in defending him.
I’m glad his writing provided you with enjoyment. I’ve yet to see anything to justify delving into his works.
Regards,
Dann
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Ellen Parr frequently misattributed to Dorothy Parker
@Dann665–Not trying to say you should give his fiction another chance. Even at his best, which I found quite impressive at the time, his work may just not have been for you.
And, sadly, I have read some of his blog. I regretted having found it.
@Dann: I disagree strongly with your twitterdescription.
At the moment we have zero moderation.
There are some people who should be banned and should have stayed banned, there are a some were there would be a disent and you could find some where even if all the facts are known, most posters here will agree that the ban was wrong.
At the moment Twitter has become more unatractive for a lot of users and for advertisers so this is not a success.
Re Antisemitism I an happy to hear that Mr. Wright is not giving in to that hatred today. I am also not suprised that the post about Moshe Feder did get the reaction it got. In my rememberens that wasn’t the main critism of the puppies, in that time. We had in Sad Puppie 3 the nomination of someone who did glorify Nazis in his fiction (the tank) and VD while denying beeing an antisemite at this time (and he never lies on the internet as we all know. 🙂 ), has lost that mask.
So at last the leaders didn’t mind that in writers whose works they nominated.
@Dann: You have an odd habit of using defense of Israel as an indication of lack of antiSemitic attitudes. Someone who calls Jews “Christ haters” does not get free points for supporting Israel’s self-defense, and someone who agrees that Jews are fomenting hatred of whites doesn’t get any points for anything. Assuming that your blanket assertion that pre-Dilbert-Stark-Twitter was biased towards Hamas and that that is automatically anti-Semitic, it makes no sense to celebrate a further tilt into Hitler-praise. I’ll let you have the last word, since I have no further interest in talking to you.
P.S. However, Lis is right – JCW wrote some good stuff before he revealed his true nature. If you have no problem with Musk, then Wright might be right up your alley (along with some watercolours rejected by the Vienna school of the Arts).
@Avram Livegood
I’ve said not a single word to justify that. At this point, I’ve learned to know better than to expect an apology for such baseless accusations.
And as:
I’ll just wish you the best.
Regards,
Dann
Me on Goodreads.