(1) POTTER SCROLLS. I made a mistake about the lead item in yesterday’s Scroll. The people behind Harry Potter and the Sacred Text are not going to sit in the Sixth & I synagogue for 199 weeks talking about Harry Potter. They’re doing a 199-episode podcast – matching the total number of chapters in the seven Harry Potter books – and the Sixth & I appearance is one of many live shows on a country-wide tour. (Specifically — Washington DC Tuesday July 18th @ 7pm — Sixth & I.)
The presenters also have several sample videos on their YouTube channel that demonstrate the lessons they illustrate with Rowling’s stories.
(2) WRITER UPDATE. When we last heard from Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, she had just come out with ”Strange Monsters”, (which Carl Slaughter discussed at Amazing Stories). Since then, she has been nominated for a Nebula for “The Orangery” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies; won the Grand Prize in the Wattpad/Syfy The Magicians #BattletheBeast contest, which means her story will be turned into a digital short for the TV show The Magicians; sold ”Needle Mouth” to Podcastle; and sold “Maneaters” and “Something Deadly, Something Dark” to Black Static.
(3) WHEN IN VROME. John King Tarpinian and I joined the throngs at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena tonight to hear the wisdom and humor of John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow, and get them to sign copies of their new novels The Collapsing Empire and Walkaway.
A bonus arriving with the expected duo was Amber Benson, once part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, now a novelist and comics writer, who also voiced the audiobook of Scalzi’s Lock-In.
Amber Benson, John Scalzi, and Cory Doctorow.
Amber Benson, John Scalzi, and Cory Doctorow. Photos by John King Tarpinian.
(4) GAME CHANGER. Hard to imagine the sff field without her, but apparently it might have happened: Rewire tells “Why Mary Robinette Kowal Traded in Puppets for Science Fiction”
A “catastrophic puppeteer injury” wouldn’t mean the beginning of an award-winning career for most people—but Mary Robinette Kowal is a different sort of someone.
… Thus began 25 years as a professional puppeteer. Kowal toured the country with a number of shows, including another production of “Little Shop of Horrors” (she’s been a puppeteer for seven “Little Shop” productions). While helping again to bring killer plant Audrey II to life, Kowal popped a ligament in her right wrist.
For most, a bum wrist is an annoyance. But for a puppeteer, it’s a catastrophic career interruption.
(5) THE CHOW OF YOUR DREAMS. Scott Edelman is back with a new Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Actually, this one’s going up a little early. I’d normally have posted it Friday — but since I’ll be at StokerCon then, where I will either win my first Bram Stoker Award or lose my seventh, thereby becoming the Susan Lucci of the HWA — I figured I’d better get it live now so I had no distractions while aboard the Queen Mary.
In Episode 35 you’re invited to “Eat one of George R. R. Martin’s dragon eggs with K. M. Szpara”.
K. M. Szpara
I was glad to be able to return for a meal with K.M. Szpara, who has published short fiction in Lightspeed, Shimmer, Glittership, and other magazines, and has recently completed his first novel. He edited the acclaimed anthology Transcendant: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, about which Kirkus wrote that it “challenges readers’ expectations in ways that few have managed to do before.”
Listen in and learn about his formative years writing Hanson and Harry Potter fanfic, which darlings he had to kill to complete his first novel, why rewrites are like giving a floofy poodle a haircut, what he didn’t know about short stories when he began to write them, the many ways conventions are like big sleepovers, the reason he was able to eat one of George R. R. Martin’s dragon eggs, and more.
(6) SCRATCHED. Like the rest of America you probably weren’t watching, so you won’t need to start now – SciFi Storm has the story: “Powerless indeed – NBC pulls show from schedule”.
From the “never a good sign” department, NBC has abruptly pulled the DC comics-tinged comedy series Powerless from the prime-time schedule, without any word on when the remaining episodes may air. The show, which starred Vanessa Hudgens, Alan Tudyk, Danny Pudi and Christina Kirk, struggled to find an audience from the start, despite the success of comics-based series of late.
(7) I WAKE UP STREAMING. Although NBC is shoveling a DC flop off its schedule, Warner Bros. is launching an entire service built around DC Comics properties.
Deadline.com says DC Digital will launch with a Titans series from the guy who does the shows on The CW and a Young Justice animated series: “DC Digital Service To Launch With ‘Titans’ Series From Greg Berlanti & Akiva Goldsman And ‘Young Justice: Outsiders’”
The DC-branded direct-to-consumer digital platform, in the works for the past several months, marks the second major new service launched by Warner Bros Digital Networks — the division started last year with the mandate of building WB-owned digital and OTT video services — following the recently introduced animation-driven Boomerang. The DC-branded platform is expected to offer more than a traditional OTT service; it is designed as an immersive experience with fan interaction and will encompass comics as well as TV series.
(8) SUSPENDED ANIMATION. Digital Trends sums up “‘Star Trek: Discovery’ 2017 CBS TV series: Everything we know so far”. What we know is nobody can say when it’s going to air.
The first episode of Star Trek premiered 50 years ago, and the beloved sci-fi franchise is now scheduled to return to television in 2017 with a new series on Netflix and CBS — or more specifically, on CBS All Access, the network’s new stand-alone streaming service.
CBS unveiled the first teaser for its new Star Trek series in early 2016, and the show’s official title was revealed to be Star Trek: Discovery during Comic-Con International in San Diego in summer 2016. With the latest movie (Star Trek Beyond) in theaters this past summer, many Star Trek fans are wondering exactly how the television series from executive producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and showrunners Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts (Pushing Daisies) will fit into the framework of the sci-fi franchise as it exists now.
Star Trek: Discovery was originally slated for a January release, but the network subsequently pushed the premiere date back to an unspecified date in mid- or late 2017. Here’s everything else we know about the series so far….
(9) IT TOOK AWHILE. Disney’s Gemini Man may be emerging from development hell says OnScreen in “Ang Lee to helm sci-fi actioner Gemini Man”.
Acclaimed director Ang Lee has entered negotiations to helm the long in-development sci-fi action thriller, Gemini Man.
First developed by Disney back in the nineties, the story sees an assassin forced into battle with his ultimate opponent: a younger clone of himself. Tony Scott was previously set to helm Disney’s take, based on a pitch by Darren Lemke. Several writers have taken a pass at the project over the years, including David Benioff, Brian Helgeland, and Andrew Niccol.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 25, 1940 — Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker debuted in Batman #1, published 77 years ago today.
- April 25, 1950 — The board game Scrabble trademark was registered.
(11) LEFT ON. The London Review of Books’ Russian Revolution book review includes China Miéville: “What’s Left?”
…That person, as it turns out, is China Miéville, best known as a science fiction man of leftist sympathies whose fiction is self-described as ‘weird’. Miéville is not a historian, though he has done his homework, and his October is not at all weird, but elegantly constructed and unexpectedly moving. What he sets out to do, and admirably succeeds in doing, is to write an exciting story of 1917 for those who are sympathetically inclined to revolution in general and to the Bolsheviks’ revolution in particular. To be sure, Miéville, like everyone else, concedes that it all ended in tears because, given the failure of revolution elsewhere and the prematurity of Russia’s revolution, the historical outcome was ‘Stalinism: a police state of paranoia, cruelty, murder and kitsch’. But that hasn’t made him give up on revolutions, even if his hopes are expressed in extremely qualified form. The world’s first socialist revolution deserves celebration, he writes, because ‘things changed once, and they might do so again’ (how’s that for a really minimal claim?). ‘Liberty’s dim light’ shone briefly, even if ‘what might have been a sunrise [turned out to be] a sunset.’ But it could have been otherwise with the Russian Revolution, and ‘if its sentences are still unfinished, it is up to us to finish them.’
(12) ALT-MARKETING. Most of you know that two weeks ago Monica Valentinelli refused to continue as Odyssey Con GoH after discovering the committee not only still included a harasser she’d encountered before (their Guest Liaison!), but she was going to be scheduled together with him on a panel, and then, when she raised these issues, the first response she received from someone on the committee was a defense of the man involved. The con’s other two GoHs endorsed her decision and followed her out the door.
Normal people responded to that sad situation by commiserating with the ex-GoHs, and mourning Odyssey Con’s confused loyalties. Jon Del Arroz set to work turning it into a book marketing opportunity.
First, Del Arroz discarded any inconvenient facts that didn’t suit his narrative:
A couple of weeks ago, an invited headlining guest flaked on a convention, OdysseyCon. No notice was given, no accommodations were asked for, simply bailing two weeks before it happened, leaving the fans without an honored guest. The Con responded professionally and nicely, trying to work things out as much as possible, but that wasn’t enough for this person who took to social media, and got a cabal of angry virtue signallers to start swearing, berating and attacking anyone they could.
Then he showed his empathy by arranging a book bundle with the works of Nick Cole, Declan Finn, Marina Fontaine, Robert Kroese, L. Jagi Lamplighter, John C. Wright (“nominated for more Hugo Awards in one year than any person alive”), himself, plus the Forbidden Thoughts anthology, Flyers will be handed to attendees at next weekend’s con telling them how to access the books.
Because Jon evidently feels someone needs to be punished for the unprofessionalism of that guest. After the fans at Odyssey Con read those books, they can tell us who they think he punished.
(13) RUN BUCCO RUN. Major League baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates have a huge new scoreboard and an interactive video game to go with it.
After the fifth inning, the team debuted a new feature on PNC Park’s renovated digital scoreboard, which runs the length of the Clemente Wall in right field: “Super Bucco Run.”
Inspired by the hit mobile game, the Pirates had one of their fans running and “bashing” blocks while “collecting” coins and items on the scoreboard. Keeping with the tradition, the flag went up the pole at the end of the segment when the fan completed the challenge….
It was a genius bit of mid-game entertainment that the Pirates plan to rotate with more videoboard games throughout the 2017 season. Over the offseason, they updated the old scoreboard with an 11-foot high and 136-foot long LED board with features like this in mind….
https://twitter.com/Lokay/status/850423705150861312
(14) ROCKET MAN. More on the Fargo Hugo, the story that keeps on giving.
Gloria grabbed a Hugo award to use as a club!
— edpell (@edpell) April 23, 2017
Is that a Hugo Award that Gloria grabs in Ennis's house in the @FargoFX premiere?!?
— Mary K (@purdymaryk) April 24, 2017
Hugo Award in the first episode, season 3 of #Fargo shaping up to be ????
— Cillian McGillycuddy (@cillianmac) April 24, 2017
I spent a whole lot of time looking at @HugoAwards this weekend because of @FargoFX. See what I learned, @pajiba https://t.co/ninMmS8YhT
— Genevieve Burgess (@rustyheadedgirl) April 24, 2017
And here is Genevieve Burgess’ post for Pajiba.
The silver rocket on a base follows the exact specifications laid out for the Hugo award trophies which means that someone did their research on how to fake a Hugo. However, it does not MATCH any of the Hugo Award trophies that actually exist, which means someone did even more research to make sure they weren’t exactly copying one.
(15) FACTS ON PARADE. Yahoo! Style has a gallery of the best signs from the March for Science.
[Thanks to JJ, rcade, Stephen Burridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Jon Del Arroz, Carl Slaughter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day rcade.]
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@Chip Hitchcock
I’ve never had a bad experience talking with an author either, but I’ll admit I was thinking of the Ellison/Asimov story as well, which I read right about the same time. He was a young, new teacher at the time, but he’s still teaching now. Maybe I’ll ask him about it at my 40th Reunion this fall.
I think it’s fair to say that there is a *risk* that meeting an author of books you love will end up ruining them for you. And there’s a risk of the same thing if you read/respond to an author’s tweets. The question is whether that risk is worth it, and that’s going to be an individual thing.
@rcade
My cats do a lot of asshole-signalling.
@Greg Hullander. Thank you! Its always nice to see someone who actually knows what the words “socialism” and “communism” mean, when they use them.
And yes, Venezuela is not a communist state.
The Book Smugglers have put their Hugo packet submission on their website if anyone wants to get an early look at it.
“Meredith moment”; Barbara Hambly’s 3 book Sun Wolf and Starhawk series available on Amazon UK for £2.46 and Amazon.com for $3.15. I’m not currently caught up on comments so apologies if someone else already mentioned this.
I recommend these books – I own them already in paperback but at that price will be happy to have a back up e-version.
Cats do not write SF, as far as I can tell. Some writers are like cats: you can talk to them for hours and they just purr. Some scratch and others deliver hairballs.
@Cassy B – Somalia is probably better described as anarchy.
Venezuela under its various strongmen have seized private companies right and left. You can quibble if this is a kleptocracy, socialism, communism, outright stupidity, or some combination – but it has taken one of the richer countries in South America and turned it into a land which cannot feed its people. Trying to run a command economy has historically been a disaster in most of the world for the last 100 years.
@Greg – last time I checked the USA still had the Constitution, the Rule of Law, Property Rights and an independent Legislature and Judiciary. Despite how much you dislike Trump, thinking he is a dictator or will somehow become one does not fit with the facts. I did not vote for him, but much of the hue and cry about his Presidency from the left has been overwrought.
@Mark
Thanks. That looks nice.
The Hugo folks asked us to put together a Hugo Packet for Rocket Stack Rank too. It was very hard to decide what to put into it, partly because they offered the options of PDF, Mobi, and Epub formats. It turns out that it’s hard to create Mobi or Epub files from web pages and get a result that doesn’t look awful. We wasted a couple of days on that before we gave up and decided to stick with PDF files of the best pages. Since we posted almost 900 web pages last year (every review is its own page) it wasn’t feasible to just create one monstrous PDF will all the content in it.
The admins agreed to let us create a special web page pointing to the same content online and to include a link to that in our packet. That was quite a relief.
It’s too late to change it now, of course, but I wonder if anyone has better ideas for what ought to go into such a packet for a fanzine? Or does everyone just find the fanzine online and ignore the packet?
The overwhelming majority of Venezuelan industry and production is in private hands, despite airboy’s statements to the contrary. The ‘strongmen’ that he refers to have been popularly elected in observed elections, as well, although the path of the government looks like it might be going in a disastrous direction right now. The current crisis is caused by the change in oil prices, the drought, and perhaps more significantly, the government’s very thoughtless attempt to manipulate the currency, which has led to the spike in inflation and some of the more intense corruption.
Aside from that, the recent actions on the part of the puppies really seems to be affirming Doris Sutherland’s argument about the puppy label becoming a form of branding.
@airboy — given the clear examples of massive conflicts of interest, pay for play, ignoring of ethics laws, the Mike Flynn breaking the law regarding disclosure of foreign involvements, etc and so on, I’m beginning to question whether we still have a ‘rule of law’. Since the inauguration, there have been many things that prior to that date would have been prosecuted, because they are illegal. The current POTUS and his family and cronies seem to be serene in not being constrained by the law, and no one is willing to hold them to account.
I have a problem with that. And it’s not a right/left problem, either. I was under the impression that ‘rule of law’ was a bi-partisan thing.
Apparently I was wrong.
@airboy
Yes, you’re right, it still does. For now. My problem with Trump is that he campaigned like a dictator, made promises only a dictator could keep, and attacks the courts and the Congress whenever they prevent him from ruling by decree. We have never had a president so openly contemptuous of the rule of law. Never.
When I look at the history of how democracy died in other countries, it usually starts with the election of a man like Trump. A would-be strongman who promises things he can’t possibly deliver and then blames the courts and the legislature for stopping him. Step-by-step he uses his popular support at a tool to get measures that weaken them. Or he uses a national emergency (sometimes a fake one) to get emergency powers. Powers he uses to make himself dictator for life.
As I said above, Trump is not a dictator yet, but he clearly wants to be one. And I don’t have to look further than my Facebook feed to see people openly arguing that America needs a dictator to fix its problems.
Will we have a free election in 2018? I think so. Will we have one in 2020? I’m not sure. I’ll be 60 next year, and in my whole life I’ve never had any doubts that American democracy would endure. Until now.
@Greg
I think the main merit of a packet entry is presenting the best entries and an interesting cross section, rather than the convenience as such. Doing that for RSR is probably a bit difficult as the main benefit lies in the mass of reviews and data, so I suspect your solution is the best one.
@airboy
You have previously told non-Americans not to talk to you about US-specific politics because you claimed we weren’t informed enough to do so. Kindly apply the same rule to yourself for non-US politics.
@Brightglance – it’s showing up as $11.33 for me. Her Darwath trilogy was a favorite of mine in high school. I must have read it four or five times back then, and at least once in the past decade. I never read anything else of hers, though – started the Sun Wolf and Starhawk series, but I was so disappointed that it wasn’t set in the world of Darwath that I couldn’t get into the first book (that used to happen to me a lot in high school).
@Greg: “It turns out that it’s hard to create Mobi or Epub files from web pages and get a result that doesn’t look awful.”
I don’t find it difficult at all. Granted, that may depend on how attached you are to the “chrome” of the pages, but scooping out the content and putting it into a decent reader-friendly template is usually pretty easy.
@brightglance: Hee. I picked that trilogy up in December, as part of Open Road’s big free-for-all.
@Techgrrl: “Since the inauguration, there have been many things that prior to that date would have been prosecuted, because they are illegal. The current POTUS and his family and cronies seem to be serene in not being constrained by the law, and no one is willing to hold them to account.”
Agreed 1000%. This is political tribalism at its worst and most blatant; Trump and his cronies are getting a pass because he ran with an R after his name. If we still had a “rule of law” in D.C., the impeachment trials would already have started.
EDIT, @kathodus: “I was so disappointed that it wasn’t set in the world of Darwath that I couldn’t get into the first book (that used to happen to me a lot in high school).”
You expected lots of books to be set in Darwath when you were in high school? How odd. 😉
@Greg Hullender
Yes. Every president has an antagonistic relationship with the press – that is an essential element of the free press – but Trump has promised to weaken the 1st Amendment in regards to the free press, by “opening up” libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists and periodicals. This has generally not been in response to inaccurate articles, but rather to articles critical of his ideas, policies, and statements.
Additionally, Trump has attempted to undermine the courts by claiming any judge who disagrees with him is dishonest and/or activist. This is something we often see in politicians, particularly on the Right, but Trump has taken this to new depths.
Trump has been very transparent about his attempt to ban people of a specific religion from entering the US – a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. While, yes, his lawyers have worked to word his Muslim ban in such a way that it doesn’t violate the 1st Amendment, Trump has had a very hard time upholding that conceit. He can barely even wink and nod about it the way a decent dishonest politician would.
Top that with the list of items that would be worrying even without the previous facts – his ongoing series of political rallies, his blatant monetizing of the White House, the fact that he has the support of literal neo-fascists and white supremacists and is legitimizing some of them (Breitbart) by allowing them into the press corp – and you have clear signs the man either doesn’t understand our democracy enough to work within it, or is a wanna-be dictator.
And it is not just the nebulous Left worrying about his dictatorial ways, not unless a lot of pretty right wing politicians (ie, McCain) are now suddenly leftists.
@Rev. Bob – smart-ass! 😉
Greg Hullender:
Wtf!? That must be some weird kind of american socialism that I have never heard of then. And we do not make that sharp distinction between socialism and social democracy. Actually, the latter is sometimes called democratic socialism. But Sweden is bit social democratic anymore. Mostly social liberal.
Sweden is not social democratic anymore I meant.
Ok, there was a big difference in the swedish and the english version of Wikipedia with regards to socialism.
Authors, like any human being, can be assholes under some situations and not so much under others. I met Tom Disch at one point under very offputting circumstances and disliked him heartily for a while. A few months later while out to dinner with some folks, he was so sweet and nice to my mother that he will always hold a special place in my heart.
airboy, I must admit I’m a little unclear as to the distinction between strong libertarianism and anarchy. Strong libertarianism advocates weak or non-existent government, doesn’t it? (I recall many arguments <mumble> years ago in high school with a self-styled libertarian who informed me that police departments and fire departments should be abolished and roads should be built by private people who wanted a road somewhere….)
I welcome correction if my impression is incorrect.
@Cat — thank you for that anecdote. I was a Disch fan who was heartily annoyed when he pulled out of teaching the Clarion I was headed to — only to meet him online, later, and while we had our issues, it was a good correspondence; I only wish I’d had the chance to meet him in person.
@theoriginalpost 😉 — It’s worth noting that Mr. del Arroz is now going on at length about how pleased he is that people are upset with him trying to “give free books to loyal fans” and how the “opposition media” is spreading “fake news” about him. Highly entertaining to watch him spin “I am being swamped with comments, which I won’t post” into “I am being attacked because of fake news”, given the level of fakery in the post cited here.
@Hampus
As someone from Britain I would probably be a lot closer to your definitions of socialism / social democracy / democratic socialism than Greg’s.
For example worker’s coops are perfectly in keeping with socialist philosophy. They can work in a pure market economy or a pure socialist economy or the mixed economies of western Europe.
In contemporary American conservative discourse, the label “socialist” gets applied to any politician or policy standing to the left of Ronald Reagan. I personally would like to restrict the term to something much narrower, such as “state ownership of the means of production for the benefit of the working class”. Unfortunately, I admit that my version might be a little too narrow, since the British Labour Party gave up on the whole nationalization thing in 1995 but didn’t drop out of the Socialist International.
(Speaking of which, I observe that the only Venezuelan political parties that belong to the Socialist International are in the opposition.)
@kathodus
I have it on authority of local Trump supporters – McCain, Graham, Paul Ryan (?!?), McConnell (?!?), etc. are all left of center RINO’s (Republicans In Name Only). Go figure.
@Cassy B
You see variation in libertarianism ranging from minarchists, who support at least a limited government presence (police, fire, courts, military, etc) to anarcho-capitalists that believe the entire state should be dissolved and everything handled through ‘free enterprise’, contracts, and arbitration. Your high school person sounds like an anarcho-capitalist (of which Somalia probably would be a good example of failure modes).
Before we decide that historians and SF writers who want to write about the Russian Revolution have to go live in nasty places rather than pursue their careers, can we rule that the Heritage Foundation and other such “think tanks” should be liable for the results of their confident predictions?
I mean, the Heritageurs stated, back in 2001, that the Bush tax plan would “boost economic activity, create over 1.6 million new jobs, and strength the incomes of taxpayers. The plan would reduce excess tax revenue and effectively pay off the publicly held federal debt by FY 2010.”
Can we send them to live in Somalia until they’ve learned their lesson? If novels and history books are crimes worthy of relocation, what does fucking up the global economy get you?
@Stoic Cynic – Sure, but nowadays you can become a RINO just by believing that roads should be maintained and water should be unleaded, and that the government should be doing these things.
Rich.
In contemporary American conservative discourse, the label “socialist” gets applied to any politician or policy standing to the left of Ronald Reagan.
If Reagan were alive and active in politics today, he would be labeled a “socialist” by modern American conservatives.
If Reagan were alive and active in politics today, he would be labeled a “socialist” by modern American conservatives
I understand the intention, but this is a pointless statement in the same way that “If Heinlein were writing the books he wrote in the 1950s today, no one would read them” is a pointless statement. Reagan was a product of the conservative movement of his time; if he were alive today, I’m absolutely sure he would adapt to the conservative movement of our time, just as a time-displaced Heinlein would produce different work in a different cultural context. Much more so really, since Reagan was a public-relations guy first and foremost rather than someone with a strong personal vision.
(Besides which, I think it’s a bad choice of examples in that it seriously soft-pedals the many ways that Reagan set the tone for the modern right wing and would fit in just fine there. The Tea Party’s main gripe with him would be that he eventually raised taxes – but he didn’t make that happen by himself, it was made possible by having a Congress that was capable of acknowledging fiscal reality.)
@Eli I have to disagree that it’s pointless; the problem is the conflation between {actual historical figure} and {actual historical positions}, which is, arguably, an invalid shorthand. 🙂
It’s just not as rhetorically punchy to say “Someone holding the exact same positions as Richard Nixon did would be considered a liberal Democrat by the current Republican Party” as to say “Richard Nixon, to many Republicans today, would be a liberal Democrat.”
Sadly, strict logic usually loses to rhetoric, even in our own speech.
@imnotandrei One of my truly deep regrets in life, one that will haunt me to my dying day, is that I didn’t re-establish contact with him when I moved to Brooklyn a few years later. He really was a sweet, sweet man, and could be startlingly shy for a large bald man with dragon-tattooed forearms.
Several of the people I knew through the Writing Seminars at JHU ended up committing suicide; it’s one reason why I believe the community needs to look after its creative talents. Sometimes they are more fragile because they perceive the world more truthfully than we do. Tom was one of those.
I recall reading some article, in Forbes or the like, which, I kid you not, spoke highly of how Somalia’s lack of government regulation was allowing small businesses to flourish. This was shortly before those small businessmen started hijacking ships.
@Robert Wood – The price of oil is not what killed the Venezuelan economy. Chavez nationalized the oil industry. He put his cronies in charge. Cronies did not do the basic maintenance or listen to the engineers. Oil production became horribly mismanaged and total production tanked. He and subsequent strongmen nationalized many other large companies. This includes major food producers and food wholesalers. They also gave out large bribes to their followers which hammered the currency. Wildly printing money tends to bring about inflation. It is what it is. And Venezuela is yet another horrible bad example of socialism, seizure of private property, and lack of the rule of law. The rest of you can quibble about definitions of “socialism” or “seizure of private property,” etc…..
And I agree the strongmen were elected. Currently their Congress is elected and the strongman is trying to remove all of their power. This is what happens when you have no real rule of law.
@Cassy B – To have a modern economy you have to have the rule of law and property rights. One function of government is to allow property rights and enforcement of contracts. Somalia is basically anarchy. If you have enough guns and gunmen you can take property from others. In the USA, most libertarians are arguing for small or minimal government, not no government. Do some wish there was no police or fire departments – I’m sure there are. Is this viable to me – nope.
@Techgrrl1972 – Rule of law is very important in almost any form of government. Your use of Flynn is a weak example since he has not been indicted for anything. He may, or may not be. If he is, then it is in the court system. To me at least, this is the same as complaints by some that Hillary should be in prison. For what? What crime? And in what court? Hillary/Flynn either, neither or both may be guilty or indicted for something and if so may be convicted – or not.
@Mark – I have been reading about Venezuela, their economy, and the results of their decisions for more than a decade in the Wall St. Journal. My opinions on Venezuela are based on facts from a credible source. You may choose to read what I say, or not.
@Greg – I disagree that Trump is further in the dictator category than any previous President. Lincoln was worse. He removed habeas corpus, filled an entire prison with his political enemies (without bringing charges), and took other actions disregarding the Constitution. The actions by Wilson and others towards Anarchists plus the Alien and Sedition acts were also worse. Does that excuse Trump – no it does not. But Trump’s actions are not nearly as bad as some of our previous Presidents.
I have to disagree that it’s pointless
You have understood the point in a way that Eli did not.
@Anthony: thanks for the ref. I’ll have to ask (if I see him again) whether redacting the clearance name — after leaving in the transcript a lot of material that should be redacted for the uncleared — was significant or just another snark at the bureaucracy Bob and Mo are trying to cope with.
@Cat Thank you for the insight and the stories. I wish I’d known him better — though I am glad, in my own little way, to have been able to persuade people to make him FOGcon’s Honored Ghost next year, since the theme was “Performance”, and, well…
” it’s one reason why I believe the community needs to look after its creative talents. Sometimes they are more fragile because they perceive the world more truthfully than we do. Tom was one of those.”
It’s bitterly funny — I was having a discussion with some friends about “Cold” vs. “Warm” authors — and we all agreed that Disch was very, very far on the “cold” end — in his books, not in person — and part of that, I think, comes from just how clear his vision was.
@airboy
How fascinating that you dismissed other people’s credentials to talk to you about US politics, but absolutely insist on your own credentials on Venezuela. And when I say “fascinating” I obviously mean “hypocritical”.
I suppose I may miss something by ignoring your distillation of ten years of bravely reading the Wall St. Journal for us, but as you’ve already demonstrated that your analysis blaming socialism is fatally flawed I rather doubt it. (Hint: blaming it on something that is in no way unique to socialism doesn’t actually help make your case)
The idea that if the people running the government ignore the law then “rule of law” still applies because they didn’t charge themselves with anything is a nicely pretzeled logic.
Whether Flynn did illegal things or not (and he pretty clearly did), the measure of “rule of law,” surely, is about the law actually being applied. If people in power get away with stuff because the DoJ is unwilling to indict the big guy’s pals, then that’s an example of “rule of law” not actually being applied.
The people yelling for Hillary’s scalp are insisting that because they really really dislike her, she must be guilty of something. The people who want Flynn prosecuted want the rule of law applied. There’s a difference, and it’s not merely ideological disagreement.
@imnotandrei: So… the statement relies on “an invalid shorthand”, but if it were put in a different and less wrong way, then it would be less wrong? Well yeah… and I don’t think that’s all that different from what I just said. Indeed, it’s a trade-off between “rhetorically punchy” and “saying anything particularly accurate or meaningful about the historical figure that the speaker chose to reference“, and I think it leans too far toward the former.
Not sure why Aaron is so convinced that I didn’t understand his point, rather than disagreeing with how he chose to make it. To me the point was basically “the modern right wing is very extreme,” which is true. There’s no need to misleadingly imply that Reagan (or Nixon) had a principled ideological stance notably different from theirs in order to make that point, and IMO that’s not a trivial nitpick because lots of people these days have a vague enough knowledge of that history that they can easily draw the wrong conclusion; I’ve seen lots of examples of this from Facebook acquaintances within the last few years, e.g. someone who was absolutely convinced (from third-hand interpretation of some argument online) that Nixon had proposed single-payer health insurance and that Ted Kennedy had shot it down.
You could just as easily predict that Trump or McConnell will be called a socialist by someone in the GOP at some point, and it would have equally little to do with their actual beliefs or policies.
@Rose: “This was shortly before those small businessmen started hijacking ships.”
You say “hijacking ships,” they say “pursuing an aggressive strategy of resource appropriation and acquisition.” 😉
My theory is that people don’t go and find fanzines they aren’t already reading.
Also, I design my entry in the packet for people who have never heard of me and may never have dipped into fanwriting before. Another factor in the design is that I try not to overwhelm them with a vast amount of material. Just enough to be representative of my range of coverage.
@Rev. Bob
You say “hijacking ships,” they say “pursuing an aggressive strategy of resource appropriation and acquisition.”
If that’s not a line from a Charles Stross story then it ought to be!
@Eli ” “saying anything particularly accurate or meaningful about the historical figure that the speaker chose to reference“”
Aye, there’s the rub — because usually what they want to say is about the difference, not the historical figure.
Short form: I agree with you that it’s suboptimal. I think sometimes the point needs to be made in a short, forceful form, which that statement does.
I am reminded of a line from Hunter, on Daily Kos; “.is there anyone left of Cthulhu who could fit the bill, or can a truly conservative viewpoint at this point only be adequately represented by crude visual approximations, like perhaps an iguana duct-taped to a car battery?”
And that is perhaps an even better way of asking the question, leaving Nixon out of it altogether. (And Reagan. And everyone, really, except the iguana. And Cthulhu, whose historical reputation is…of little concern. :))
@Cat Rambo, @imnotandrei: I never got to meet Disch, but I understand he was a complicated and difficult person. My first thought on hearing of his death was a selfish one: sadness that I’d never get to tell him how much his work had meant to me (I say selfish because I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have made any difference to him, it was just a moment I had wished for). My second was that, while what Cat said about community and fragility is true, ideas about the “tortured artist” run the risk of falsely implying that those of us who aren’t geniuses are innately more resilient against hardship and loss; I think it could be equally valid to say that Disch might not have survived as long as he did without his gifts, and that the circumstances that wore him down (major depression, a partner’s death, loss of housing) can happen with or without an uncomfortably clear perception of the world.
Oddly (maybe), all the negative/hostile impressions I ever got were from nonfiction— some over-the-top personal stuff in his critical writing, and the heavy bitterness in his later blogging years— whereas the fiction, even though I totally understand how it can be read as “cold”, always radiated empathy and humor for me even at its grimmest.
airboy:
If we look at the charts of Venezuelan oil production, we can see that “tank” is quite an exaggeration. It had a big dip, then slight lowering and after that started to increase again in 2011 which would be impossible with your explanation. Lets also remember that the cost and work of extracting the oil has increased during this time as the oil deposits easiest to access has been depleted.
And as the profits during this time went to the Venezuelan public instead of overseas, we can be quite sure that the nationalization of the oil industry was one of Chavez good ideas.
What Kurt said. The GOP investigated Hillary 11 times, including that wonderful 11-hour marathon. They admitted there was no crimes committed. Ever.
Mike Flynn clearly violated Federal Law concerning disclosures by retired military officers concerning contacts with and taking money from foreign governments. On the face of it, indictments should be in progress. But there aren’t, apparently.
The two situations aren’t in any way similar. The violations of the Emoluments clause and the anti-nepotism laws passed after the Kennedy administration are even clearer. But the GOP and the Trump Justice department are busy ignoring all of this.
The Rule of Law is rapidly being killed. We are clearly on our way to becoming a kleptocracy.
But, hey, Hillary had an email server!
China was my instructor at Clarion. He is indeed a great guy, helpful, smart, articulate, funny. And I am not saying this because he called one of my stories “incandescent”. Yes, I have stories. No, I am not going to tell them in writing. Let’s just say he is a genuinely nice guy.
Anecdata but, based on my understanding of at least some Trump supporter’s viewpoint: Reagan or Nixon might very well find themselves on the RINO list if they were around today. The key distinction, as far as I can tell, landing folks like Boehner, McConnell, or Ryan on their RINO list isn’t philosophical but that they compromised at some point with the Democrats. So did historical figures like Reagan and Nixon. Which means governance is effectively dead if there is no room for compromise.
(4) A serendipitous injury. I’ve never read anything of hers I haven’t liked, and most of it I love. Plus she’s so encouraging to new writers, and so gracious and pretty that I ought to hate her, but I don’t b/c she’s just that awesome.
(6) Dammit. I liked “Powerless”. And I’m not a sitcom person. I guess hubby and I were the only ones watching, and we don’t have a Nielsen box (The opening credits are mighty clever — at least watch those online if not the show). Oh well, there’s another half hour per week to spend on File 770.
(12) Sounds like a RW kid’s book: Johnny Rice and the Alternative Facts.
On meeting authors: Luckily, I’ve rarely been disappointed. I mean, I expected Harlan to be an asshole. Otherwise, they’ve mostly been cool in my brief interactions with them. Sometimes utterly delightful.
(Oh! I met Matt Frewer at SV Comic Con last weekend! Gracious, kind, funny. Says he’s up for more Max Headroom if anyone wants it.)
@Mark-kitteh: Thanks for the link! Esp. good for those of us who (sob) won’t get the packet this year.
@OGH: Your packet sub last year was splendid.
@Kurt: Yes. You just might be good at this “writing” thing.
Regarding Republicans: Oh, for the comparatively-honest days of Nixon.