Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Fred Pohl, in a 1978 discussion with Alfred Bester (transcribed and posted recently here):

“No woman writer has been in any way handicapped by being female in science fiction in the last 10 to 15 years, with one single exception.”

Pohl, with his career as writer, agent, and editor, was in a better position to have an opinion than most people.  On the other hand, as a male insider, he was in a better position to harbor self-serving delusions than most people.   Also, his statement doesn’t address any possible prejudices harbored by the readers; even if the publishing chain was completely sex-blind, it would take account of how things sold, and so if the readers cared, it would end up being reflected in publishing.

Go read it.

A very nice and fairly short post that sums it up nicely.  Brought to my attention by Bear.

The four rules of question safety:

1. ALL questions are ALWAYS loaded
2. Never let your question cover anything you are not willing to learn about
3. Keep your finger off the “Enter” key until your question is on topic
4. Always be sure of your subject and surrounding disciplines

With a tip o’ the hat to Jeff Cooper and, er, “jdog” (yes, I tracked that through and know who that is).

The Economist strikes again:

If Dr Lammers and Dr Galinsky are right, the sense which some powerful people seem to have that different rules apply to them is not just a convenient smoke screen. They genuinely believe it.

I’m ashamed of my country again. I’m posting about the Peter Watts thing, of course.

I stole the title from Jo Walton, because it is perfect.

The story started popping up on my friends list after it appeared on Boing Boing this morning.

If you don’t know at least the bare outlines by now, you’re living under a rock; but you can find out at the links above, so I’m not going to repeat any of it.

Here’s what’s terrifying about this: there are quite a number of people commenting on the basic theme of “that’s the way things are.”  That’s terrifying—apparently police (in the broad sense; I believe these were border guards) have been jack-booted thugs above the law for long enough that people have learned to take it for granted.  That’s really, truly, deeply, terrifying.

The concept that the Constitution protects our rights is…incomplete. Nothing static can really defend against hundreds of years of political maneuvering. What it can do is give some basis for fighting back. Rights always need protecting. Ours in the USA have been fairly badly ignored over the last couple of decades, so we need to work extra hard for a while to recover from that.

There are the usual claims that Watts “must have” done something to bring this on himself.  It’s entirely possible he did some things that I would describe as “inadvisable” in his situation.  Nobody who knows him thinks he started  hitting the policemen, though,  so I don’t either. At worst, from what I’ve read, he asked questions, perhaps more than once, and he got out of his car. Those are not actions that could justify a police beating! As Jo put it, “he should have cringed more”.

We’ve given money to Watts, and to the ACLU, and I have written to one elected official already.