(1) CAPALDI MAKES IT OFFICIAL. Not unexpectedly, the Twelfth Doctor is leaving Doctor Who as new showrunner Chris Chibnall gets ready to take the reins.
“Doctor Who” star Peter Capaldi has announced he’ll step down from the role at the end of the year.
Capaldi has starred in the long-running sci-fi series as the titular Twelfth Doctor since 2013, following the departure of Matt Smith.
“One of the greatest privileges of being Doctor Who is to see the world at its best. From our brilliant crew and creative team working for the best broadcaster on the planet, to the viewers and fans whose endless creativity, generosity and inclusiveness points to a brighter future ahead,” Capaldi said in a statement. “I can’t thank everyone enough. It’s been cosmic.”
Capaldi will conclude his time as the Doctor with the 2017 Christmas special.
The actor’s departure will correspond with the exit of executive producer Steven Moffat, who previously announced his intention to leave his post.
(2) BURN OF THE DAY. J. K. Rowling knows how to deal with fantastical creatures, like frogs that tweet.
*sighs* Well, who knows? If I try harder, I might be reincarnated as a lonely virgin hiding behind a cartoon frog. pic.twitter.com/EbocdxfJ5o
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 30, 2017
(3) DECOLONIZING SF. Strange Horizons has posted an Indigenous SF special issue.
It’s our second special of the month, and showcases fiction, poetry, and non-fiction by native and indigenous writers.
We have Drew Hayden Taylor’s story “Take Us To Your Chief” (from his collection of the same name); we have three poems apiece by poets Halee Kirkwood and Tanaya Winder; we have a round-table moderated by Rebecca Roanhorse; and of course reviews, including a double-feature look at Moana.
(4) THE HARP THAT ONCE OR TWICE. R. Graeme Cameron wrote a superlative column based on Walt Willis’ 1952 U.S. Trip report for Amazing Stories that combines his analysis with the old master’s storytelling.
Walt actually had a good time aboard ship. When asked what he did for a living he said he was a pulp fiction author going to America to pick up his earnings. The “Greenwich Village” pseudo-intellectuals on board coming back from bumming around Europe stood in awe of this creative type who actually earned money. Late in the voyage he was asked if anyone was meeting him in New York and he replied (more or less honestly) “Just a few fans.” This only increased his reputation. Sometimes fannish ploys work very well on Mundanes.
QUOTE
At last we docked, and hordes of officials swarmed on board … I had a whole stack of documents in an old Galaxy envelope and every time I came to an official I would shuffle them and deal him a hand. If I’d won I’d be allowed to go on to the next table, like a bridge tournament. I’d had some practice in this game already and at last I won the first prize, a clear view of the gangway. I found to my shocked surprise that suddenly there was absolutely nothing to stop me walking ashore. I promptly walked ashore.
Someone in a blue suit came up and shook my hand … It was Dave Kyle … Joe Gibson came along in a few seconds. After a few minutes chat the two revealed conspiratorially that Will Sykora and his henchman Calvin Thomas Beck were lurking outside to meet me. They suggested a cloak and dagger scheme by which they would go out and wait for me a couple of hundred yards outside the shed, while I strolled out by myself past Sykora and Beck, who wouldn’t recognise me.
I was thrilled. Nobody could have arranged a more fannish welcome. Not two minutes in the country and already I was up to my neck in New York fan feuds. However I temporized; I had nothing personally against Sykora … I had never been able to sort out New York fandom anyway … and I rather wanted to meet such a legendary figure. Besides, I knew Shelby had in his innocence asked Beck to meet me …
Outside, in the fresh clean smog of Hoboken … I had my first hamburger, closely followed by my second. As far as I was concerned, the food problem in America was now solved …
END QUOTE
(5) RECOMMENDATIONS. There are a bunch of sites whose Hugo picks I’m interested in hearing, and Nerds of a Feather is high on that list — “2017 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Award Longlist, Part 1: Fiction Categories”.
Given the vast number of Hugo categories, we’ve also made the decision to split the longlist up into multiple posts. Today we look at the fiction categories (Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette and Best Short Story). For fiction that is available free of charge, we’ve embedded a direct link to the story. For novels and works of short fiction that are not available for free, the embedded link redirects to a review.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 30, 1933 — The Lone Ranger made its radio debut.
(7) GAME WRITING. “Guest Post: On Representation in RPGs, from Monica Valentinelli” on Jim C. Hines’ blog.
Why does representation in RPGs matter? The answer is simple: players play games so they can be the hero in their own stories. The characters they choose (or build) allow players to perform heroic acts with their group, and they’re crucial to a player’s ability to have fun. There’s even a joke told about this at conventions. What’s the best way to get a player excited to talk about their game? Ask them about their beloved character!
Characters are important, and I feel it’s a game designer’s job to acknowledge different styles of play to offer a broad range for players to choose from; the other side of that coin, however, is to remember that players also possess different identities. In order to consider both in the games we make, developers, designers, writers, and artists address inclusivity through the lens of representation.
(8) MOVIN’ ON. I had forgotten that James Cameron did Aliens, but that explains why someone asked his opinion about Ridley Scott’s upcoming trilogy that begins with Alien: Covenant – “James Cameron On The ‘Alien’ Franchise: ‘I Don’t Think It’s Worked Out Terribly Well. I Think We’ve Moved On’” at ScienceFiction.com.
“The franchise has kind of wandered all over the map. Ridley [Scott] did the first film, and he inspired an entire generation of filmmakers and science-fiction fans with that one movie and there have been so many films that stylistically have derived from it, including my own Aliens, which was the legitimate sequel and, I think, the proper heir to his film. I sort of did it as a fanboy. I wanted to honor his film, but also say what I needed to say. After that, I don’t take any responsibility.
I don’t think it’s worked out terribly well. I think we’ve moved on beyond it. It’s like, okay, we’ve got it, we’ve got the whole Freudian biomechanoid meme. I’ve seen it in 100 horror films since. I think both of those films stand at a certain point in time, as a reference point. But is there any validity to doing another one now? I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s see, jury’s out. Let’s see what Ridley comes up with. Let me just add to that — and don’t cut this part off, please — I will stand in line for any Ridley Scott movie, even a not-so-great one, because he is such an artist, he’s such a filmmaker. I always learn from him.
(9) CASSINI ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Dr. Linda Spilker, Cassini Project Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was recently interviewed by Starship Sofa, appeared on Cassini’s Ring-Grazing Orbits Facebook Live today. You can view the half-hour video recording at the link.
NASA’s Cassini Mission to Saturn Project Scientist Linda Spilker and mission planner Molly Bittner are taking questions about these exciting orbits, the closest look ever at Saturn’s moons and ring particles — what we’ve learned so far and what we can expect to see as they continue.
(10) OPEN THE PILL BAY DOORS HAL. In our future, robots as care companions: “Robots could help solve social care crisis, say academics” at the BBC.
Humanoid robots, with cultural awareness and a good bedside manner, could help solve the crisis over care for the elderly, academics say.
An international team is working on a £2m project to develop versatile robots to help look after older people in care homes or sheltered accommodation.
The robots will offer support with everyday tasks, like taking tablets, as well as offering companionship.
(11) A BLACK AND WHITE ANSWER. Opus would be proud: penguins used as models for better software: “Hungry penguins keep car code safe”.
The communal, co-ordinated action helps the penguins get the most out of a hunting expedition. Groups of birds are regularly reconfigured to match the shoals of fish and squid they find. It helps the colony as a whole optimise the amount of energy they have to expend to catch food.
“This solution has generic elements which can be abstracted and be used to solve other problems,” he said, “such as determining the integrity of software components needed to reach the high safety requirements of a modern car.”
Integrity in this sense means ensuring the software does what is intended, handles data well, and does not introduce errors or crash.
By mimicking penguin behaviour in a testing system which seeks the safest ways to arrange code instead of shoals of fish, it becomes possible to slowly zero in on the best way for that software to be structured.
(12) THE RIVALS OF 1984. The BBC has hard data on dystopia sales surge.
It Can’t Happen Here – Sinclair Lewis
Sales: As of Friday, the eighth best-selling book on Amazon. It was out of print in the UK but publishers Penguin launched a new edition following the inauguration – promoting it as the book that predicted Trump – and has so far ordered three print runs, totalling 11,000 copies, a spokeswoman said.
Plot: A charismatic demagogue, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, runs for president on a promise to restore American greatness, dragging the country into fascism.
The Trump factor: Sales of this relatively obscure 1935 satirical novel took off when critics began claiming it was essentially the Donald Trump story. Sally Parry, of the Sinclair Lewis Society, claims there are parallels with Trump in the way that Windrip targets his message at disaffected white working class males – The League of Forgotten Men in the book – sweeping to victory on a wave of anti-immigrant, nationalistic sentiment.
But she adds: “Some of his satire is not necessarily towards Buzz Windrip, the fascist character, but towards the lazy intellectuals, the lazy liberals who say ‘well, things will go along’ and the constant refrain of ‘it can’t happen here’, this is America, we are exceptional.”
(13) MAKING LEMONADE. Someone has a plan for putting a contaminated area to use: “How solar may save Ukraine’s nuclear wasteland”.
Earlier this year Ostap Semerak, the minister for ecology and natural resources in Ukraine, announced plans to build a large-scale solar farm in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone. “The first phase will install solar panels with a total capacity of one gigawatt,” says a ministry spokesperson. “In the future [there] are plans for capacity increase.”
A large field of 25 acres, filled with solar panels, generates approximately 5MW. To put this into perspective, the football pitch at Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground is 1.75 acres and would only generate 0.35MW. So, for a solar farm to generate a gigawatt of power, it will need an area of 5,000 acres, which is nearly eight square miles. There is, fortunately, a lot of available land in the Exclusion Zone.
(14) BRUCE WAYNE’S ROOMMATE. Lego Batman explains why his movie is awesome.
Lego Batman hypes up his own upcoming Lego Batman Movie in a new behind-the-bricks featurette that breaks the fourth wall.
“Obviously after I made The Lego Movie, a monster hit $468 million worldwide, not that I’m counting of course, it seemed clear to everyone that the world needed more of me,” Will Arnett says as Lego Batman in the clip released Thursday.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve “Dr. Strangelove” Davidson.]
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I thought Capaldi had previously said that he wasn’t going to continue on into the new showrunner’s tenure? Maybe that was a “probably” and this is “definitely”.
Ms. Rowling has quite the way with a zinger.
ticky
It Can’t Happen Here is obscure? That explains a lot.
James Davis Nicoll on January 30, 2017 at 7:36 pm said:
It might be a lot more obscure in Europe than in the U.S. (Cultural differences come in, I suspect.)
I remember when we got our handsomely bound copy of Warhoon 28, and I took it to work and was perusing it in the break room. A co-worker asked me what I was reading, and I explained it in simple terms. “You read the weirdest books,” she said.
I gotta go see a scroll about a pixel.
3) DECOLONIZING SF: Just recommended that Drew Hayden Taylor story earlier after the happy accident of reading it (didn’t realize it was a reprint at first). Hope folks check it out.
5) RECOMMENDATIONS: Um. I think we need more (publisher) diversity in our novellas.Interesting that there is only a single overlap between that list and the choices of Clarke, Dozois, Horton, and Strahan. Zero overlap with the CDHS stories I particularly liked and recommended myself. Still, an interesting post with a lot more potential 2016 reading.
8) MOVIN’ ON: Agreed with Cameron. I respect and like the first move, love the second, charitably describe the third as a nice effort at doing tragedy (though I could uncharitably just call it a tragedy) and quit watching after the fourth one.
They scrolly pixel at night. Scrolly.
Why don’t we pixel her in scroll?
Get away from her, you pix!
Am I doing this right (albeit poorly)? Can someone help me out with a good’un?
10) OPEN THE PILL BAY DOORS HAL: More short fiction on the brain. If there’s anyone in the world who hasn’t read “Today I Am Paul” about a robot caretaker, then please do so. Yet another sign that awards aren’t on the ball these days – nominated but didn’t win. Didn’t even make the shortlist of the Hugos, apparently. Bah. Great story.
“Pixel scroll the boat ashore, Hallelujah….”
[godstalk]
(10) One of the books I read last year was Spring Festival by Xia Jia, translated from the Chinese by Ken Liu. The first story, “Tongtong’s Summer” was about exactly that notion — the use of robots to care for the elderly. There is, of course, a twist …
Clicky
With all apologies to Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, and you, the reader:
Have you ever heard the Pups cry ’bout the Hugo ‘Ward
Or asked the trolling dread elk why they troll?
Can you sing with all the voices of the filkers?
Can you paint with all the pixels of the scroll?
Spring Festival by Xia Jia, translated from the Chinese by Ken Liu.
Publisher?
James Davis Nicoll: “Spring Festival by Xia Jia, translated from the Chinese by Ken Liu.”… Publisher?
It’s a free story from Clarkesworld.
LEGO Mystery Science Theater 3000… with all the airlock doors.
That story is but I was looking for the collection of the same name.
Ah, that’s here, it’s by Future Fiction.
Our pixelacious bodily fluids are in jeopardy! Our pixelarity of scrollescence!
On recommendations, right now I am loving the hell out of Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, about black characters intermingling with Lovecraft cultists and cold dark planets, engaging the bigotry while admiring the storytelling.
@Jason:
With Asimov’s and Analog going bimonthly (joining F&SF, which has great novellas) we might actually get that.
…although these days, anything online is easier to buzz about than anything in print, and novellas have a harder time online. System dynamics are weird.
I’ll be back later (a.k.a. in the morning or after work…I’m so behind here!) but really quickly:
Novelette rec: I listened to “Touring With the Alien” by Carolyn Ives Gilman today, published by Clarkesworld. I liked it a lot, though I have no clue whether the basic premise for the aliens makes sense, and the very end gave me a “huh? why’d she do that?” feeling. Still, I recommend it. I read few novelettes, so I’m happy I liked this one enough to nominate it. It’s a mysterious-aliens-come-to-earth story where the an alien hires someone via their “translator” to drive them around and see part of the U.S.
SFal Comic Strip: Maximumble by Chris Hallbeck continues to have frequent SFF references and content; Monday’s strip is fair of face, I mean, is a Star Wars gag. I love Hallbeck’s stuff. 🙂
yay!
Thou ancient, Thou free, Thou Pixels north
Might it be that it’s more of an American dystopia than Fahrenheit 451 is (and more so than 1984 or Brave New World are British)?
(He says, not having read it, and clearly needing to.)
Last I remember, and I can’t source right now, was that he’d said he would leave with Moffat to give the new guy a blank slate and then that it had been suggested that he might stay on one more year. Which he presumably thought about and decided against.
I understood it to be at least in part a reaction to/warning about Huey Long, who might still be a widely remembered figure in the states, but is certainly entirely forgotten in Europe.
It takes a while to get going – the first five chapters are eminently skimmable – but after that it’s well worth a read.
Re: It Can Happen Here.
I sadly have only heard of it, and seen it invoked,but haven’t read it. I suspect that’s true of a lot of people re: Sinclair Lewis (c.f. also, The Jungle). So it gets invoked as a trope merely by its name, rather than by actual consumption.
Also see Jack London’s The Iron Heel for a similar effect. Since that one is explicitly SFnal, I really should read that one sometime.
“The pixel that rowed the scroll ashore.”
(12) THE RIVALS OF 1984
I happened to read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower late last year, and I’m now reading Parable of the Talents. And … damn, it’s brutal. Also, I think the description in these two books of exactly why civilization might break down, and what that would look like to regular people, is more realistic than many other better known dystopias. And the combination of those two makes it really, really depressing.
(2) Burn: You know, it is possible to be a virgin and not be a horrible human being. I realize I’m violating some kind of leftist ideology here, but it’s true.
Nancy: I was also put off by the virgin-shaming in Rowling’s response.
I wouldn’t say objecting to that is violating any common explicit political ideology, though it’s often the case generally that some kinds of slurs get a pass more easily than others on both the left and right. (I’ve seen various kinds of body-shaming, for instance, used with disappointing frequency by both leftish and rightish commentators in various places.)
More short fiction on the brain. If there’s anyone in the world who hasn’t read “Today I Am Paul” about a robot caretaker, then please do so. Yet another sign that awards aren’t on the ball these days – nominated but didn’t win. Didn’t even make the shortlist of the Hugos, apparently.
You can thank the Pups for that.
I realize I’m violating some kind of leftist ideology here, but it’s true.
Nothing inherently leftist about it that I know of – shaming men for virginity and women for promiscuity is a classic patriarchal double-standard. I’m not outraged by Rowling’s use of “virgin” as an insult, but I accept it’s something we need not to do if we want things to improve.
[ObSF: INSULTS – “There are more of you than before”, “Your fingers are showing”, “You are clean but animate”.]
Trump’s bookshelf: http://www.someecards.com/news/politics/twitter-empty-bookshelf-trump-white-house/
For real.
Nancy Sauer on January 31, 2017 at 4:10 am said:
First: What has that to do with “Leftist ideology”? Please explain! I might fall in the “For Americans its always ´everything you do you do because you are left/righ”-tropetrap again.
Second: She didnt say you have too be a horrible person as a virgin. She has been one. She just hinted that the OP doesnt have a social life beyond writing insults on Twitter. Yes, that insult can be criticised, yes it can be seen as a doble standard ( as some have), but its not really an insults on virgins.
Off topic but funny: There’s a new Twitter feed reinterpreting President
LittlehandsTrump’s tweets through the mouth of Deep Space Nine’s Gul Dukat. It’s hilarious (and disturbing).Recent reading: Kai Ashante Wilson’s A Taste of Honey, which I did not like at all. My longer spoiler’d review is here, but to recap: I didn’t care for the main character, and thought the “reveal” at the end was nothing but a cheat. Bah. Moving on.
(5) RECOMMENDATIONS
Yes, the novellas are somewhat Tor-heavy, but then Tor.com have been knocking it out the park with their novella line. Personally my novella longlist is only about half Tor, there have been some good ones in the magazines and from other lines as well.
Their choice of Hurricane Heels by Isabel Yap in novel is very interesting as it’s a set of five linked novelettes. I really enjoyed it but I’m not sure how well it stands up against other contenders in novel.
Dr. Strangelove:
I created a quick little video-ditty utilizing dialogue from Strangelove and images from the election; it works as a first pass (but could certainly use some editing); if you enjoy political satire (or simply enjoy feeling the combined effects of disconnect, confusion, rage, and that queer relation of deja vu that occurs whenever fiction becomes reality, you might get a kick out of it
dang, I can never get that link thing to work for me.
here it is, I hope
Good story. It’s available in the Longlist Anthology so must have had some love from non-Puppy Worldcon nominators.
@7 – The biggest problem in RPGs is very few big projects are released and the characters are not very memorable. Most of the new releases are massively multiplayer so there is a continuing revenue stream.
Minsc from Balder’s Gate was very memorable. But how many of the Fallout 4 characters were really memorable? Some were interesting, but most were cardboard representations (the female newsie who knew the town leadership was corrupt, the bogart investigator, and the head of the Minute Men whose dialogue devolved to “go save x village.”
Why not give the Newsie something in addition to the news angle. Something/Anything!! Minsc had a few lines to establish his character (brain damaged tank with a invincible pet “space hamster.” Let her collect SF novels and have her give an excited response when you bring one to her. Every xth one gives you a one-shot response of some sort.
@Peer
I’m not sure that I can manage a full unpacking of this, so please fill in the blanks charitably.
Based on American experience, leftists seek to undermine the concept of the individual because they are always seeking to undermine capitalism. Individual freedom cannot exist without the economic component that is a free market. The further “left” one goes on the spectrum, the less use those people have for private economic activity; especially corporations.
To that end….and quite frankly this is a criticism of the American right*….the American left has co-opted every disadvantaged group that they can. As long as each group is willing to sing the right words to the right economic hymns, the left will support their individual objectives. (At least, they will do so until such action is not advantageous to the left.)
Any movement that can provide a rhetorical crowbar to help undermine economic freedom is valuable to the American left. (E.g. The American left supports AGW because it justifies their desire to increase taxes that will kill the American free market….IMHO.)
One of the themes of American feminism that for a woman to be in control of her body, she must control when and where she engages in sexual activity. Which….in case this isn’t clear….I’m 100% behind.
However, one of the other themes existing within American feminism seems to be that a woman that is a virgin is a woman that is responding to “the patriarchy” and therefore is not in control of her own body. Ergo, a woman who is a virgin cannot be a “real feminist”.
Caveats….’cause someone will go there. No, not everyone to the left of Jim Webb is a revolutionary socialist. Most left of center folks are generally in favor of free market capitalism with some level of regulation. I disagree with some of their thoughts as to what constitutes an appropriate level of regulation.
Also, most folks IME…including folks that are right of center…have a reasonable position on sexual experience/activity.
Finally, please don’t bother with “but I found this American feminist that says something contrary”. There are few monoliths in politics. Almost everything exists on a spectrum. One of my favorite podcasts includes a self-described conservative feminist.
*’Cause if you are going to talk the talk about individual liberty, maybe it would be a good idea to defend it by walking the walk and supporting equal rights for everyone.
HTH. Also hope I don’t regret this. I probably just validated your tropetrap.
Regards,
Dann
@Paul Weimer: To correct a passing minor error, The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair. I haven’t read anything by him or by Sinclair Lewis either. Lewis was extremely popular in his day and was awarded the Nobel Prize. My wife read some of his better known works when she was young and sometimes mentions them in conversation but always discourages me from trying them myself. I gather they are pretty old-fashioned.
Dann:
Fixed that for you. Straw leftists are so boring.
Wtf!? Is this some try to be more SFnal? Because you sound like an alien from another planet that has tried to learn things about feminism by watching FOX News.
@Dann
Thanks, I needed a laugh today.
@Stephen. Ack, you are completely right.
Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, what’s the difference? We can all agree that they have the best dinosaur mascots of any petroleum company.
@Dann
Thanks for that, sincerely. Needless to say, none of your ideas in any way resemble what I’ve learned from my own readings in feminism, anarchism, and the less doctrinaire kinds of Marxism, but it’s genuinely interesting to see such an alien worldview so clearly presented.
@ Dann, who said:
I don’t think the left works that way.
@Ron Thornton
Outgroup homogeneity
@Dann
You might find one or two individuals who believe the things in your post, but they’re very very rare. It would be as if I said the American Right Wing is focused entirely on extinguishing any idea of human rights and restoring the absolute authority of the church. Toward that end, they encourage fear and loathing of black people, Muslims, and Jews. It has a grain of truth to it, but not much.
During the 19th and 20th Centuries, we learned that pure capitalism doesn’t work, but neither does pure socialism. All advanced economies today–without exception–are mixed, and these mixed economies have proven to be enormously successful and enormously stable. The left-right distinction, in an economic sense, is merely about the details of the composition of the mix.
The social dimension of left/right is far more interesting, inasmuch as it revolves around weighing the value of individual freedom vs. respect for tradition.
@Bonnie McDaniel
In my own review of A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson, I pretty much agreed with you. I gave it two stars instead of one, since there’s nothing wrong with the writing–it’s the plot that sucks.
I can genuinely say I have never yet met a feminist with that opinion about virginity. I won’t go so far as to say they can’t or don’t exist – I also haven’t met a TERF in person and I know they do – but colour me skeptical that this is even close to a mainstream or majority feminist view.
(Also, if this is meant to unpack Rowling’s virgin snark, Rowling was talking to someone that evidence suggests was male. Thus feminist interpretations of female virginity seem particularly irrelevant)
@Rob
Yet it wasn’t that long ago that the left abandoned the cause of a few women when it was obvious that Mr. Clinton was a sexual harasser. And more recently there was the EPA despoiling of a river with mining waste that was not a significant enough issue for the left to protest Mr. Obama. At least any such protests failed to be large enough to make it onto my media radar.
@Mark
I guess I’d rather be entertaining??!?!
@Greg
I believe I addressed that concern with my caveats. In general I already agree with your perspective even if I might disagree with one or two of the details.
@Ghost Bird
You are welcome.
Two additional thoughts.
1) Everyone looks at the outliers as exemplars in the “other group”. It weirds things all around. Better to work through the “weird” than to insult around it, IMO.
2) I knew a guy a few years back that was a proto-typical Bircher. Before he died, he agreed with some of the positions presented by OWS. It was a reminder to me to seek common ground whenever possible.
Regards,
Dann