Archive for July, 2009
poetry contest
Spurred on by some recent discussion about possible reasons people might not be joining the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA, though the name is currently under discussion), I will sponsor a small poetry contest, with an SFPA membership as prize. samhenderson has offered to kick in a copy of this year’s Rhysling Anthology as an […]
IBARW: listening
This is just to say that I have not been and will not be writng a post for International Blog Against Racism Week. Of course I have encountered a few experiences that might be relevant; people assuming my background and beliefs match theirs (unconscious assumptions that “she’s a nice person and seems right-thinking, so she […]
the usual topics
In the past few days I’ve been friended by quite a few new people on LiveJournal (I write entries to my own site, whence they are reflected to both LJ and Dreamwidth.) I warn you, the following long post is pretty typical of both the topics I write about and the level of verbosity; I […]
When the others came
The newest problems brought back the oldest ones; for all their nebulous fears about what mutations might come when depleted ozone failed to block the gamma rays, no one expected werewolves and trolls. No one expected a scant generation from the time a father’s admonition to “Stick to your own kind!” referenced race and religion […]
a little uncomfortable
The Carl Brandon Society has poster an open letter to the SF community about principles of reasoned discourse. (It was prompted by Harlan Ellison’s recent attack on K. Tempest Bradford, but as they say, he’s apologized, she’s accepted, and it’s now a private matter. ) This letter is addressing the more general issue of how […]
an open letter to Cat Bordhi
Dear Cat, First things first: you design cool socks, the Mobius scarf I knit a while back was great fun (and my MIL the science teacher liked it) and I rarely knit socks or other small tubes on anything but two circs. That said, I have finally started my first sock from your most recent […]
signal boost
Over at spec_poetry there was a mention that a lot of blog-only poems don’t get much notice, that prompted me to do something. If the poems linked below have been in any way about speculative fiction I’d have posted links there, but since they’re not (or rather they *could* be about it, but certainly do […]
position statement
I typed this out elsewhere in reference to a specific argument, then realized it’s pretty much a global statement on my position in regard to, well, anything: I do not accept any argument that starts with “you weren’t here then”, because they invariably exclude me. Further, they tend not to recognize the people like me […]
apparently my opinion is different than everyone else’s
My Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie review: meh. If anyone really cares about spoilers anymore, there are some below. As with most of the other movies in this series, I am convinced that if I weren’t familiar with the book I’d have had no freakin’ idea what was going on in the movie […]
Clarification on yesterday’s post
I should make it clear that I thought telling the “terrorist” joke was just stupidity, not a cultural difference. (The speaker spent a lot of his adolescence in the US, has worked all over the world, was telling us that in giving a speech, you need to know who your audience is – he really […]